


The Potions Mistress

by myrskytuuli



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Gen, Lily Evans is alive, Meta, Mysteries, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2020-05-16 02:54:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19309174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrskytuuli/pseuds/myrskytuuli
Summary: Up at the teacher’s table, professor Quirrell was talking to a teacher with dirty red hair hanging around her sickly pale face like a curtain. Looking past Quirrell, two poison-green eyes, devoid of any warmth or empathy, found Harry’s own brown ones, and he felt a sharp pain on his scar.“Who’s that teacher talking to professor Quirrell?”“Oh, you know professor Quirrell already do you? No wonder he’s looking so nervous, that’s professor Evans, the potions mistress. Don’t get on her bad side, the old hag hates students.“Harry looked again, but the teacher was no longer looking at him. Still, Harry could not escape the nagging feeling, which he had gotten just from a glimpse of her eyes and the cruel twist of her lips, that professor Evans did not like him very much.





	1. year one

 

Up at the teacher’s table, professor Quirrell was talking to a teacher with dirty red hair hanging around her sickly pale face like a curtain. Looking past Quirrell, two poison-green eyes, devoid of any warmth or empathy, found Harry’s own brown ones, and he felt a sharp pain on his scar.

“Who’s that teacher talking to professor Quirrell?”

“Oh, you know professor Quirrell already do you? No wonder he’s looking so nervous, that’s professor Evans, the potions mistress. Don’t get on her bad side, the old hag hates students.“

Harry looked again, but the teacher was no longer looking at him. Still, Harry could not escape the nagging feeling, which he had gotten just from a glimpse of her eyes and the cruel twist of her lips, that professor Evans did not like him very much.

 

By the first potions lesson, Harry was proven wrong. Professor Evans did not dislike Harry, she hated him.

“Ah- Harry Potter, our new….celebrity.”

The room stayed quiet, expect for Crabbe and Goyle who snickered behind Harry. If the older Gryffindors had warned Harry of keeping his head down in potions as “the nasty old hag would take any excuse she could get to take away points” the Slytherins didn’t seem any surer of their footing in the freezing cold classroom, surrounded by dried and pressed examples of poisonous plants.

“Tell me, mister Potter-“ she drew out the name Potter, tasting it in her mouth, “what are the main properties of _Convallaria majalis_?”

Harry swallowed in panic. He could remember reading nothing of _Convallaria majalis_ , rest alone its use. Besides him Hermione was stretching her hand up, almost jumping up and down on her seat.

“I see. Thought you wouldn’t put any effort into your studies. Thought that you would breeze through with you money and fame-“

“No, I do not-“

“Silence, _Potter_!”

Harry felt a burning sensation in his stomach that he usually only associated with his relatives. He hated her.

“Why don’t you ask Hermione, she seems to know!”

Her hawk-like gaze settled on the bushy haired girl vibrating on her seat, who took the sudden shift in attention as a permission to speak.

 _“Convallaria majalis_ , commonly known as Lily of the valley, or alternatively Mary’s tears, was in the past believed to hold medicinal properties, but recent research has shown that the adverse effects outweigh any medicinal properties as all parts of the plant are extremely poisonous.”

Professor Evans twisted her lips into something that could not in good conscience be called a smile.

“An eager muggleborn girl ready to prove herself to the wizarding world. Merlin, I hate your type.”

In a swish of robes, she turned around and stalked to the front of the room, leaving behind Hermione who was flushing bright red from mortification.

“Take your books out, page 12, we will start with a simple swelling solution-“

 

 

“-And then after she completely humiliated Hermione, she blamed me for Neville’s accident! Why does she hate me so much?!”

“Now, now.” Hagrid tutted. “Professor Evans doesn’t hate you… She just, has a strict style of teaching.”

Harry and Ron both looked at the gamekeeper with disbelief.

“Well.” The gentle half-giant continued, clearly uncomfortable. “She did not have the best relationship with your father. They were always a bit at odds…and then there was the- well, not my story to tell. Don’t you mind about professor Evans. She can have a temper, but she is as clever as they come. Just let it all go in at one ear and come out at the other.”

Harry let the matter drop but could not help but feel unsatisfied with Hagrid’s assurances. Whatever story there was behind professor Evans, Harry felt that it couldn’t excuse the way she acted.

 

“-Arrogant, thoughtless, attention seeking idiot, _just like your father!”_

Seething in anger, Harry ground his teeth until they hurt.

 

Looking into the mirror of Erised, Harry felt a tight band constricting around his chest. From the depths of the mirror stared back a tall man with Harry’s messy black hair and a short, pudgy woman with Harry’s wide, kind, honey-brown eyes. Harry had never seen pictures of them, but he instinctively knew that these were James and Mary Potter. His parents.

Yearning like never before filled Harry. These people looked at him with love and want. They would not have been afraid to have wizard growing in their house.

Not like the MacDonalds, who smiled and laughed and never really accepted Harry into their home. Harry, who lived in the biggest bedroom, had all the toys he had ever asked for and was never hugged like his cousin Emily. Emily was carried around on piggy-back and helped with math homework (Harry, you are going to Hogwarts when you are eleven, you don’t really need math) and gifted a racing bike for Christmas while Harry got money that he could use to buy a broomstick when he went away to Hogwarts.

(But I wanted to join Emily and her friends when they went biking.)

(And why would we want you with us!?)

(Emily had been grounded a week for daring to talk back to Harry and Harry had overheard the MacDonalds lecture their daughter on the danger she had placed them all, upsetting a wizard.)

Sitting down on the cold, stone floor, Harry stared at his parents and the other Potter family members cheerfully waving to him behind his parents. 

He stayed there, transfixed by the image, the entire night.

 

“Longbottom!! Did I not tell you to add the beetles _after_ the pixie-dust! Are you too simple to listen or do you foolish Gryffindors simply not value the lives of your classmates! Or do you need your grandmother here to hold your hand, give you a little help to pass the class? Well unfortunately for you, and all the other fools in here, it is only good results and work that will help you pass my class, which you clearly are incapable of producing.”

Swish of robes and the green eyes were once again settled on Harry.

“And what are you sulking there Potter. Think working for your grade is beneath you!”

 _Hated her_.

 

“I don’t understand….I thought Evans-“

“Ah, yes. Evans.” Hissed Quirrell. “Very useful isn’t she. Creeping around, looking like she should be offering you poison apples or putting curses on innocent babies.” Quirrell’s laughter was whining, like drawing of nails on a chalk-board.

Stalling for time, Harry forced the conversation back to his least favourite teacher. “But she was trying to kill me during the quidditch game-“

“Oh you stupid little boy. _I_ was trying to kill you. She was trying to save you with her little counter curse. Just like she was trying to stop me from getting the stone on Halloween. That nasty, meddlesome witch, if only she knew _who_ she was thwarting-“ Quirrell hissed, twitching weirdly, almost like he was staring to have a seizure, but did not quite get there.

Terrified, Harry tried to think of something, anything, to keep the man talking and not doing anything else.   

“I thought Evans hated me.”

“Hated you? Why of course she does.” Quirrell snickered. “After where your father- why that woman knows nothing but hate. But no, I doubt she has the stomach to see dead students in this school…She has always had her own crusades…”

Harry heard the words, but they made no sense to him, the fear of the situation was too strong for him to focus on anything expect on how to possibly to survive the encounter.

 

In the hospital wing, Harry ached all over, and everything felt a bit too bright and bit too muffled at the same time. Dumbledore’s half-moon spectacles glinted hypnotizingly in front of Harry’s eyes which refused to focus properly, as he tried to get his scrambled thoughts into some kind of order.

Voldemort, his return and apparent defeat. The depths of his parents’ bravery for fighting Voldemort to the last step, his mother’s sacrifice. The protection that said sacrifice had granted him. It was all too much and not enough information at once. Harry felt overwhelmed, but at the same time the holes in Dumbledore’s story left him desperate for the entire story hidden behind this brief account.

“Anything else my boy?”

“no I…Wait. Evans-“

“Professor Evans, Harry.”

“Professor Evans, Quirrell said that my father- That he and Evans- What did he mean?”

“Ah. Your father and professor Evans.” Dumbledore looked suddenly older, less like a whimsical grandfather. “Professor Evans did many mistakes during her youth and sometimes it is easier for us to find scapegoats than to face our own flaws. I’m afraid that professor Evans finds it easier to blame your father than to face the past. They were quite at odds, your father and Lily, during their time at school. A bit like yourself and Mr. Malfoy.

“But why would she save me then?”

“Professor Evans is a complicated woman, but not evil. She might blame your father for a lot, but at the same time she knows her own mistakes and regrets them deeply. I believe that she wants to atone for them by protecting you.”

“So, she blames herself and my father at the same time?”

“So she does.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Our feelings rarely do, my boy.”

“What did she do-?“

“And now it is time for you to continue your rest. Madam Pomfrey is already giving me her stern glare for keeping you up with my old man’s nattering. Sweet dreams Harry, my boy. You have been very brave.”


	2. year two

 

“-And therefore, I think that Potter should be expelled.” Evans had her trademark cruel smile on her face. The glint in her eyes told everyone how delightful she found the idea of Harry getting expelled.

“That is _hardly_ your decision to make, _professor Evans_.” Professor McGonagall said with a tight frown on her face. She always had the most curious look about her when she was around professor Evans. Like she always expected to see something that was _not_ the petty and mean woman that Evans was, and was always disappointed.

“I see. And Potter once again faces no consequences for endangering the life of another student-“.

“Please don’t try to pretend that this is about Weasley-!”

Evans lifted her chin up under McGonagall’s stern glare.

“-It was actually my idea-“, piped up Ron, bravely defending his friend.

“Well haven’t you surrounded yourself with daredevil friends, Potter. Did you enjoy it, the thrill of breaking the law? Playing with death-?“

“We didn’t-!”

“Lily! You are entirely out of line!” Snapped professor McGonagall, her nostrils flaring dangerously.

“Now, now. As a headmaster, this matter will be mine to deal with. Both of you ladies have classes to prepare, isn’t that right.” Dumbledore clearly dismissed both professors from the room, for the relief of both boys.

Evans stared silently at the headmaster for a while, before whirling away and stalking out of the door, her heels snapping loudly on the stone floor.

 

“Enemies of the heir beware! You’ll be next mudbloods!” Yelled the disgustingly eager voice of Draco Malfoy from the crowd of students milling around. Everyone was too shocked to say anything, the words hanging in the air like tangible things, with everyone too afraid to touch them.

Through the crowd pushed through professor Evans, and Harry immediately realised that every situation could always get worse.

“What is going on-?“, Professor Evans went quiet as she saw the still dripping words on the wall. Harry could swear that speechless professor Evans was the most terrifying thing he had ever experienced, and he had faced Voldemort last year.

The crowd around them also felt the primal fear of silent professor Evans who twirled around, looking furious in a way that Harry fully expected someone to drop dead just from the power of her queer toxic-green eyes.

“Potter!”

Harry was hardly surprised.

“Always there at the scene of the crime. Curious isn’t it. Eerie almost.”  

There was a snort that came from Malfoy, who immediately drew quiet as he realised that he had drawn Evans’ attention to himself. The quick glance thrown by Evans towards the blond boy did not seem like much, but Harry had a feeling that Malfoy had not been smart to make his presence known to Evans at that moment.

 

“-Well mister Malfoy? Are you going to answer the question, or are you going to sit there looking like an idiot? Not that you can help it, but if you have no intention to be nothing but a burden in my classroom you might consider not coming at all.”

To see Malfoy red-faced and straining underneath his indignation, which he was too scared to verbalise, was enjoyable there was no denying it. If he didn’t hate Evans as much as he did, Harry would have whole-heartedly enjoyed the show. 

“And what are you smirking at Potter?! Enjoying the sight of other’s humiliation. How _just like your father._ detention, tonight, 9 o’clock sharp.”

Expect that he did hate her that much.

 

The pollyjuice potion had an aftertaste that lingered all the way to the Slytherin common room, or it might have been the distaste of having to listen Malfoy’s drawling monologue.

“-And my father says that I should just lay low, but I don’t understand why! Whoever the heir is, I should be helping him! To think that the Malfoys should stand on the sidelines as the heir brings back the glory of Hogwarts.” Malfoy pouted, there was no other way to describe it.

“So, you don’t know who the heir is?” Harry had to ask again with Crabbe’s mouth. He had been so sure and to have months of their work amount to nothing- (well, Hermione’s work really) felt as bad as the pollyjuice potion tasted. They had braved professor Evans’ wrath for nothing in the end.

“I’ve told you hundred times already! No, I don’t. If I did, I would have asked them to take care of Evans already.”

“Evans.” Repeated Ron dumbly, which seemed to fit perfectly in character for Goyle. Malfoy rolled his eyes in annoyance, but his eyes glittered in excitement. He was clearly ready to repeat all of his grievances against the potion’s mistress.

“Yes Evans! That mudblood hag gave me detention! Can you imagine! For no reason at all!”

Harry could very well imagine, it was just that he did not like to imagine there being anything that he and Malfoy could agree on.

“Evans is a muggleborn?” Ron asked, scrunching his nose and looking like something foul had gotten into his mouth. Or like his father’s excited assurances of how _muggles were just so facinating_ , and _muggleborns are just so precious_ were being trampled on in a very distasteful way. Championing for muggleborns was easier when they were like Hermione. Harry couldn’t imagine anyone ever championing for Evans. There was even a very small part of Harry that felt that it wouldn’t be that much of a loss if the monster came and petrified the hag forever. Not because of the muggleborn thing, but because of the…well the Evans thing.

Malfoy huffed in disgust. “I know. I was as shocked as you when father told me. Considering that she used to be…well you know.”

Neither Harry nor Ron knew, but they nodded anyway.

“I’ve asked father to do something about it for quite the few times now already, but well-“ Malfoy seemed to realise that the end of that sentence would either have to be an admission of his father’s inability to get rid of Evans or Malfoy’s inability to convince his father. As neither option was acceptable for the blond boy, he changed the subject.

“But father says that the last time the chamber was opened a mudblood died, so I guess it will be only a matter of time until one of them kicks it. At least there is that.”

 

 

Leafing through old newspaper archives was its own circle of hell, but regardless, Harry pushed on. If the chamber of secrets truly had been opened once before, and it had resulted in a death of a student, there had to be some kind of news coverage of it somewhere.

Ron had his forehead pressed against the table. Harry could not begrudge him, they had been at it for hours and nothing had been yet found.

The words were starting to blur for Harry, and he could do nothing but marvel at Hermione, who looked as focused as she had been two hours ago. 

He was almost ready to make a case for dropping the task for today, when Hermione’s voice roused the two boys from their stupor.

“Look!”

She was showing the frontpage of the Daily Prophet she was holding excitedly to her two friends. The headline in question did not leave much for imagination. Boldly printed across the page, in a font that left no room for anything else, read:

**MURDER AT HOGWARTS**

Hermione pulled the paper back and started to read, quick and frantic, struggling to keep her voice down for library-approved whispering.

“This says that a student called Sirius Black, age sixteen, was murdered in Hogwarts at 1975 by…oh.” Her voice went down, as her eyes skimmed through the text. “oh. Oh my.” Harry had heard the same fragile quality before in Hermione’s voice only when Malfoy had called her a mudblood. Worried, he pulled the newspaper from Hermione’s unresisting fingers.

Oh my, was indeed a good description of the four-page long article behind the screaming headline. The first paragraph detailed Sirius Black as: _troubled but promising young man, heir to the ancient and noble house of Black, pulled in by muggle-lovers’ radical agenda, who had to pay a heavy price for the company he kept._

According to the interview given by the mother of the deceased, Sirius Black had been senselessly murdered by a violent muggleborn student for no clear reason.

The mother of the deceased, one Walpurga Black, spent the rest three and half pages ranting against muggleborns, Dumbledore, and anyone who sympathised with either. If Walpurga Black had any wish to talk about her deceased son, she showed no signs of it in the interview.

“That’s nasty.” Harry said, relinquishing the paper to Ron.

Hermione was resting her chin on her hand and looking away, blinking her eyes in a way that looked like she was holding back tears.

“Hey.” Harry said, reaching his hand to lay on top of Hermione’s. “She’s insane you know. Just because Hogwarts had one muggleborn nutcase, that’s still terrible way to talk about muggleborns as a whole. And she doesn’t even mention her son after the first two questions. That Walpurga Black is nasty and you should not pay any mind to the horrible things that she says.”

Hermione gave her a small smile, squeezing Harry’s hand in return.  

“Oh Merlin!" Ron hissed behind the paper.

Ron laid the paper open on the table, pointing at the last paragraph of the article. “Harry look, it’s-“

Harry quickly spun the newspaper around, both him and Hermione reading quickly the last paragraph of the article.

_The killer in question, name withheld according to the law of criminal justice for minors, has been sentenced for a term in Azkaban after a damning statement given by James Potter, a close friend of the deceased._

Harry looked at the words, at his father’s name printed in black and white. He had been part of the drama. His father’s friend had been murdered by some maniac. Harry felt light and slightly unreal.

“Well. It has nothing to do with the chamber of secrets.” Ron pulled the paper back, folding it up with attitude.

“No. It doesn’t.” Harry said. “But maybe we should still give up for tonight.”

 

 

The castle felt strange these days. Instead of security and homeliness, feelings of dread and doubt filled the corridors that no longer rang with muffled giggles of friends on escapades or quiet whispers of lovers on midnight excursions.

The hallways were silent, and the darkness seemed to creep closer day by day. In their beds, the students slept fretfully and dreamed of their friends petrified in the hospital wing.

In the filtered moonlight, the ghosts kept their own council.

“dreadful, just dreadful-“

“Why, I tell you, there never was a dead student when I was in this school-“

“It’s this century, there is something wrong with it I tell you-“

“But I remember, when that Slytherin boy died there wasn’t quite as much fuzz-“

“Oh no, young Sirius Black was in Gryffindor-“

“Are you sure, Blacks have always been Slytherins-“

“But Sirius Black wasn’t-“

“It is this century. It is foul.”


	3. year three

If Harry had thought that Evans’ hate for him could be seen from the way she looked at him, it was nothing compared to the way air itself seemed to simmer with tension between professor Evans and the newest defence against the dark arts teacher, professor Lupin.  

Professor Lupin was a walking contradiction and a pleasant surprise after the last two DADA teachers. Dressed in shabby clothes professor Lupin did not cut an impressive figure like Lockhart, or even Quirrell with his exotic charm. But professor Lupin did not have to impress the class with his clothes, as unlike the two previous teachers, Lupin’s classes were so interesting that the usually rowdy pupils stayed quiet and enraptured during the lectures.

Lupin was also to simply put it…fun. He approached the misbehaving students with such a relaxed air that the students almost forgot that he was a teacher and not one of their mates, and soon the students in question were calm and moreover had the impression that it had been their own idea to stop their mayhem in the first place.

Lupin’s benign presence kept the students focused in a way that Evans’ dictatorial terror never did and stepping into the DADA class felt like a breath of fresh air every time for the students used to more conservative teaching methods.

Seemingly allergic to anything good in this world, professor Evans hated Lupin more than anyone the students, old and new, could remember Evans ever hating anything. She avoided the great hall, leaving the table at breakfast the same second that professor Lupin made his appearance. She made thinly veiled remarks about him in the potions classroom, muttering about the students learning bad habits in the DADA class, and had reportedly had more than one overheard conversation with Dumbledore concerning the sacking of professor Lupin.

Professor Lupin seemed impervious to all of this, mostly pretending that Evans didn’t exist and changing the subject smoothly if the potions mistress was brought up.

 

Lupin’s neutrality finally cracked few weeks into the autumn term, in a class where they were practicing the ridikkulus spell against boggarts.

“Professor Evans”, Neville answered again, this time louder, to the tittering of the other students.

“Well, Mr. Longbottom. That just makes you smart, she is a dangerous woman. And a scary one too.” Lupin winked at Neville good-naturedly, turning the laughter that had been directed at Neville into a more good-natured humour where they were now laughing with Lupin. “But. Maybe we can make her a little less scary.”

Neville’s pronunciation of the spell ended up being clear and loud, when he finally gathered his wits and pointed his wand at the looming figure of professor Evans, sneering and spitting insults at the boy.

Immediately her dark robes turned into a pink, frilly dress, such as might be seen on toddlers on their princess-themed birthdays. Instead of spitting insults, she was now twirling her hair between her fingers and talking to herself in a high-pitched, girlish voice. “Oh, why don’t I still have a boyfriend, I’m so alone, poor me. No one wants to date a nasty witch like me, it is so sad.” The boggart’s vapid voice made everyone in the classroom first giggle and then flat-out burst in laughter. Seeing their foreboding and controlled potions mistress act like a silly, boy-crazy, teenage-girl was simply too much.

“Where is my prince.” The boggart sighed mournfully. “Why isn’t he here?” It walked around, twirling the frilly dress, getting closer to Lupin and further away from Neville.

“Where is he?” It demanded again, but now its demeanour had changed. It was staring at Lupin, all vapidity gone. “What happened to him?! Where is he!?” The pink dress was no longer puffy, but wet and dripping dark red on the floor- “What happened to him!!?”

Lupin stepped back, pushing Ron smoothly in front of the boggart, making it transform into a giant hairy spider.

“Whoops, it got a bit confused, being equally close to both me and Neville. Now Ron, as I showed the spell!”

  

 

Ron was eager to relate the whole thing to his brothers and Ginny, with the rest of the Gryffindor house joining in to listen. He was doing a decent impression of Evans twirling and mooning about a boyfriend to the raucous laughter of everyone.

“-And then it got close to Lupin and started to ask _him_  where her prince charming was!”

“Maybe professor Lupin’s worst fear is Evans having a crush on him!” Fred howled from the floor where he had ended up after laughing too hard.

“Well bloody hell, I wouldn’t blame the man!” Ron exclaimed in horror. “Can you imagine the kind of love letters that hag would write!”

This started another loud round of yelled suggestions and laughter.

Hermione was the only one in the group whose laughter stayed steadily forced, and whose smiles were becoming smaller and smaller.

“What’s wrong Hermione? You look like the old hag was lurking somewhere underneath these couches.”

Hermione flushed slightly when the attention was turned to her, fidgeting on her place at the end of the couch.

“I know what she is like. I don’t like her, nobody does. But… she was also the only muggleborn that Malfoy respected. Or at least didn’t dare to make fun of. Didn’t you hear Malfoy do this exact same mimicry at dinner today?”

Ron shuffled on his feet, mumbling frustratedly at his shoes. “Oh c’mon Mione. You know that it’s not like that. We’re not making fun of her because she’s a muggleborn, but because she’s nasty. You’re nothing like her.”

“That’s not how the Slytherins see it.”

“Because they’re also nasty. Evans isn’t the kind of muggleborn you are. You are good and nice. She’s mean and all into dark arts and all sortsa freaky stuff.”

“And she was the one that was respected, not tolerated, by everyone.”

“Hermione, why do you always have to make everything into such a problem!” Ron ended up spitting out. Around them everyone went quiet from sheer awkwardness.

Hermione opened her mouth once, then twice, but ended up storming out without saying anything.  

 

The door to professor Lupin’s office opened and Harry could not have been more surprised to see Evans stride in. If the tension between professor Lupin and Evans had been poisonous before the boggart incident, it had turned nuclear-waste toxic afterwards.

From the startled way Evans regarded Harry, she seemed to be just as surprised to see Harry as Harry was to see her.

“Professor Evans.”  Lupin nodded briskly.

“Lupin. I see that you have once again acquired yourself a Potter to impress.”

“Well, it is always nice to chat with a student as talented and keen to learn as Harry here.” Lupin winked at Harry.

Evans did not comment further, but her lips twisted up slightly in a mocking smile as she placed a steaming goblet, which she had been carrying, on the table.

“Thank you.” Lupin said stiffly. He downed the whole vial underneath Evan’s hawk-like gaze.

Evans accepted the empty vial back, her eyes still burning with something undefined. “I have more if you feel the need for any.”

“That is very kind of you, but I do have trust in your brewing skills Lily.”

Evans twitched at the use of her first name.

“And still there can never be enough precautions taken, wouldn’t you agree. With your…condition. We wouldn’t want an…accident.”

“I am quite aware of my condition. We both know that this vial is sufficient to take care of it.” Lupin’s amiably pleasant tone took a darker undertone. “And I wonder what precautions have been taken to make sure you stay harmless?”

Evan’s hand moved like she started to reach for her wand and then aborted the movement. Snapping around in a flurry of robes she marched away, with a look on her face that did not bode well for anyone who might cross her path. That was nothing new to Harry, what frightened him was the look of unfiltered hatred that flashed in Lupin’s eyes for a second as he looked at Evan’s retreating back.

 

“Oh it’s terrible business, just terrible. One can’t help but think that he must have been tortured to give up that information. He did always seem to worship Potter. And then killing himself right after, I know what he did was unforgivable but still it all seems such a waste-“

“I wonder if you don’t remember the boy through a tad too rose-coloured lens. I always thought that the boy was smarter than he let people see. Was even held back by Potter and Black-“

“Now who has rose-tinted memories.”

“I mean it. Peter was very clever when it came to spell work, it just was not noticed with Potter and Black always stealing the show. Those two boys-“

“A real double-act those two boys. Like brothers. I wonder if Black had survived things would have been different. With Black as Potter’s secret keeper-“

“It’s not like Black was an angel himself. If Peter made the decision to betray them, there is no saying what would have happened with Black. Black was friends with Lupin too and look how that turned out-”.

“Now. He was a boy who made a mistake.”

“I’m just saying that maybe Peter made a mistake too.”

“The situation was entirely different, Peter was Harry’s godfather, to betray your own godchild like that-!”

“I know, I know. But what is past is past. No use digging into it any more than that.”

 In the booth next to the drunk adults, hidden by the Christmas tree decorating the pub, Harry was gripping his glass of butterbeer knuckles long gone white and the horrified eyes of Ron and Hermione staring back at him.

 

Harry was very thankful that he had decided to come using his invisibility cloak. Lupin, wrecked by hideous sobs, did not notice the door of his office opening, nor the slight creaking of the floorboards as invisible Harry sneaked in and then started to back out.

Professor Lupin had been so happy that Harry would use the invisibility cloak to pay him visits now and then. It reminded him of Harry’s father, who Lupin was always happy to talk about.

But now Harry was sure that the man did not want to be witnessed. Not when he piteously sobbed the name Sirius over and over again, a broken picture-frame laying on the floor with a photograph of a handsome, dark-haired young boy in Gryffindor robes laughing with his hand thrown over teenager Lupin’s shoulder.

 

 

“Oh nonsense! It is clearly a joke product from Zonkos.” Lupin laughed. Harry felt fierce gratefulness for the man for covering the nature of the map, which he clearly knew not to be a zonko product.

“Oh is it.” Evans hissed at Lupin, malice dripping from her every word. “Well, I don’t trust your definition of a joke. Merlin knows that what you and your little friends got up to back in the day-“

Lupin interrupted Evans with what could only be described as a growl, and both Evans and Harry went a bit paler. “And I don’t trust your definition of justice.”

“Potter cannot just flaunt the rules whenever he wishes-“ Evans soldiered on, despite her paleness. “If it was up to me, he would have been expelled a long time ago-“

“And if it was up to me-” Lupin continued, distaste towards Evans, that he so laboriously usually tried to hide, now plain for all to see. “-You would be still in Azkaban. But neither of these is our call to make, now is it?”

 

 

Rushing through an underground secret tunnel underneath the Whomping Willow was not what Harry would have described as “good time” but Ron was his friend and if he wanted to chase his half-dead pet rat, then Harry would help him. Scrabbers, whose miraculous return to life, after weeks of arguments and cold shoulders between Ron and Hermione, owed it to them to come back whole and healthy and cheer Ron up after all this trouble.

The rat had been acting strange ever since they arrived in the castle and privately Harry suspected that it was just looking for a place to die at this point. It was over twelve years old rodent after all.

“There! I got it- NO! He slipped away again. There, he went underneath that door!”

“Ron, we don’t know where this passageway leads! Maybe we shouldn’t-“ Hermione had to swallow back the rest of her words as Ron had already pushed through the door at the end of the tunnel.

Following Ron, Harry and Hermione ended up in a room that somehow managed to be even more unnerving than the tunnel had been.

They were in a dark room, with no windows nor doors, where the walls were covered in scratch-marks like a giant beast had tried to force its way out through the walls. There was a small bed in the corner, with every wooden corner gnawed and bitten into.

Looking down at his feet, Harry noticed that he was standing on an old stain, a faded dark brown puddle steeped deep into the wooden floor.

Harry stepped off immediately, having a terrible suspicion of what substance the dark stain and the faint impression of a reddish handprint, faded but still visible on the dusty floorboards, might be.

 

_I can’t die_. The mantra in Harry’s head did not get any more believable the more he repeated it. Not like this. Not after Voldemort and the chamber of secrets. Not killed by someone who cares about me. Not by professor Lupin.

His lungs were on fire, as he tried to scramble forwards faster, the dirt underneath his shoes not giving him enough of a grip, the walls of the tunnel making him claustrophobic and the panting and growling of the beast behind him the most terrifying thing he had ever heard.

The werewolf was gaining on him, Harry knew that he couldn’t outrun a werewolf, but still he kept stomping onwards, the flash of red trim on Ron and Hermione’s robes a comfort. At least they were in front of him, at least they might make it.

Something yanked on the hem of Harry’s robe and he felt a jolt of pure adrenaline shoot through his nervous system, a desperate chemical reaction of someone who knew he was about to die.

It wasn’t the werewolf that had pulled him. It was the bloodied and mangled hand of Peter Pettigrew, whose face was half-way ripped off by a strong set of claws, and who looked like a nightmare himself as a result. Harry couldn’t stop the scream, not when Pettigrew pulled him back, when his small and injured form scrambled over Harry, like a rat fleeing from a predator.

Hah. Instincts honed over twelve years.

Now that Harry had been pushed down, his body feeling like a separate thing from his mind, it was impossible to remember how to get up again. Limbs shaking, Harry tried to pull himself up, breath oxygen in, to try one more time for survival, but the hot puff of air on his neck told him that it was too late.

Rolling around, Harry’s eyes met the yellow canine ones, which would have shared resemblance with professor Lupin had there been any spark of intelligence, instead of hunger, behind them. 

 

Death came, but not for Harry. A flash of green light, and the beast crumbled down, the yellow eyes shutting forever.

It was deathly quiet in the tunnel, as Harry looked at the still grey fur, the long yellowish fangs, the triangular ears.

He was alive.

Professor Lupin was not.

Carefully turning around, Harry saw professor Evans standing at the entrance of the tunnel. The full moon illuminated her silhouette, wand still pointed steadily over Harry’s head, her green eyes unnaturally bright and face even paler than usual (though that might have been the moon). Behind her illuminated silhouette, Ron and Hermione’s faces peeked tear-stained at Harry. The night was now quiet, and it dawned to Harry that Pettigrew was nowhere to be seen, that professor Lupin might have died for nothing.

 

Harry stands in the shadow of an armour, watching as two serious looking wizards in grey suits pack away what is left of Remus Lupin, in the DADA classroom. The sun has barely risen, painting the world in reddish hues. It feels like a vigil of sorts to stand there, looking as professor Lupin slowly disappears from the castle.

Harry had cried during the night, but now there is only fuzzy calm in him. He feels light, probably from the lack of sleep and the hunger, but he doesn’t feel hungry or tired. He feels light and fuzzy.

He feels that at least _he_ has to witness these last moments that Remus Lupin’s presence is still in the castle.

Harry isn’t sure how long he stands there, underneath the invisibility cloak, watching as the two wizards finally lock last of the boxes they had with them and shrink them to be carried off to who-knows-where.

Harry doesn’t know where Lupin’s things might end up. If he had a will, and who it might have been addressed to. Who did the lonely werewolf had in his life left anymore that he could have left his things to.

Or if werewolves were even allowed wills. Harry didn’t know. He had never bothered to look up anything to do with werewolves’ legal rights. Hermione was the one who did their research, and he had never asked Hermione either.

A shadow fell over Harry, who startled from his melancholic musings.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping in? You do have a free day today.”

Albus Dumbledore was as kindly and unreadable as ever. Harry removed his invisibility cloak without questioning how Dumbledore had known. Dumbledore always knew.

“I couldn’t sleep headmaster.”

“I see.”

There was a companionable silence between the two, as the ministry officials walked off, Remus Lupin’s things with them in a one small suitcase.

“You know Harry, I took the liberty of confiscating one item from Remus’ belongings which I whole-heartedly believe should go to you Harry.”

The headmaster pulled an envelope from the folds of his purple robes, handing it to Harry.

Curiosity taking the better of him, Harry opened the envelope, pulling several old photographs from the inside.

Forgetting Dumbledore’s presence entirely, Harry stared at the top photograph, where young professor Lupin stared back at him, happy and carefree, his hand slung around the shoulder of a boy with Harry’s tousled hair. Harry’s father grinned and waved at Harry and Harry felt a lump form in his throat.

Most of the pictures were of professor Lupin and his three friends, Harry’s father, murdered Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew the traitor. All young and ignorant of the tragedies that would separate them in the future.

There were few pictures of a man and a woman that vaguely resembled professor Lupin and must have therefore been his parents. There were also few with only Remus himself, but the last picture to fall form the well-worn envelope made Harry’s heart miss a beat.

Young Remus Lupin in his second-hand Gryffindor robes was smiling widely next to his partner in slightly better fitting Gryffindor-robes. In front of them on the table was a small cage with a delicate wooden bird flying around and preening its wooden wings. Between the two of them, the children held a plaque which read:

First place on second year charms-work competition, partners Remus John Lupin and Lily Johanna Evans.

Twelve years old Lily Evans had her shoulder bumping companionably with young Lupin’s, and the two were laughing at some joke shared between them.

“They were friends.” Harry whispered astonished, to the corridor that he now found himself alone in.

 

 

In the potions class the next day, professor Evans was even more savage than usual. Compared to normal, Evans was wilder, her strides stumbling from time to time, and her verbal attacks less coherent than usual.

As the woman leaned closer to berate Harry, Harry could smell the faint breath of alcohol still in her breath.

After the class was over, Harry lingered, wand in hand, simply looking at Evans who was slumped on her seat in front of the class, rubbing at her temples.

“What.” She spat out, her green eyes flicking to stare at Harry from behind strands of unclean hair.

Harry didn’t say anything. There was nothing he could force out from his mouth.

Evans gaze wandered to the wand Harry was gripping in his hands, knuckles white, and she laughed. Her laugh was raspy and mean.

“Revenge won’t make you feel better. And I did save your life, you ungrateful brat.”

Harry stood for a moment longer, hoping for a burst of strength that would allow him to finally attack this woman who had stolen the one adult that had loved Harry for being Harry. The strength did not come and he ended up turning around and running all the way to the Gryffindor common room where he finally cried his eyes out, snuggled deep under his blankets.


	4. Year Four

Harry arrived at Hogwarts, for the first time feeling conflicted at seeing the castle. He thought that returning would be like the years before, with joy and familiarity washing away the miserable summer, but resting his head against the glass-window of the carriage, idly wondering why he was now seeing the skeletal winged horses pulling them, he felt discontent.

He had dreamed of Lupin’s death thorough the summer, and he was realising that his nightmares would not end in Hogwarts. In hindsight, it had been a stupid thought to have in the first place, but such was his faith in the magic of Hogwarts that he had believed it.

A glimpse of the Whomping Willow seen against the setting sun, and Harry's innards twisted painfully. 

 

_-That many have claimed to be a shocking oversight of security from Professor Dumbledore. Several concerned parents have begged the ministry to make sure that a repeat of such werewolf infiltration where our children are at their most vulnerable can never happen again. A new, more effective creature registration act is currently being debated in the chambers of Wizengamot, but many of the concerned citizens interviewed in the Diagon Alley say that they do not feel that the ministry is doing enough._

_There has been talk of an Order of the Merlin being awarded to Professor Evans, the Hogwarts’ Potion Mistress, who subdued the feral werewolf attacking the school’s children. Albus Dumbledore has not yet been reached for a comment on the matter, but we will continue following the story as it develops._

 

When the Goblet spat out Harry’s name, he desperately wished for a sympathetic adult to be there to help him fix this. There was none, so he did what he did best, and muddled through.

 

Hermione was sobbing, hiding her face behind her hands, but the tips of her elongated teeth still peeked visible behind them.

“Ten points from all of you.” Evans droned boredly, like she couldn’t care less about Hermione’s shame, about the laughing Slytherins. “And stop sobbing Granger.”

“But look what they did to her!” Ron yelled, his indignation over Hermione overriding his fear of Evans.  

Evans looked at Hermione, and there was always something strange in the air when Hermione and Evans locked eyes. There was something that Harry quite couldn’t grasp. A ghost of an understanding. Dead before it ever had a change to exist, but the potential appeared to haunt the interactions between them.

“And what _did_ they do? Goyle’s boils looked more painful.”

“But-but! They made Hermione-“

“Ugly. Would you rather she be beautiful and in pain? Five points from you Weasley, for arguing with a teacher.”

 

 

The Scottish winter was giving its best in the garden, with fat snowdrops slowly floating down from the sky, doing a little ballet caught in the gentle wind flurrying around the castle. Harry’s cheeks felt still warm from the hot air of all the teenaged bodies writhing and pulsing inside the great hall.

The Yule Ball had been getting more and more miserable by the hour, with Harry abandoned by his date, Ron sulking somewhere and Hermione ignoring them in favour of Krum. It was hard to believe that this was the fabled night that they had been waiting for so long.

Hidden between two thick evergreen hedges, Harry took a moment just for breathing.

“Lily! Old friend! I need to talk to you”

Karkaroff for once looked like he belonged in his furs and heavy boots, striding meaningfully across the frozen ground, quickly crossing the ground that was visible through the small hole in the vegetation that Harry had adopted as his place of quiet.

Evans was not visible, but her voice was colder than the air.

“Igor.”

“You have been avoiding me, Lily.”

“Everyone avoids you, Igor.”

“You are still cruel. Beautiful but cruel.”

“Are you still asking for that fuck. There comes a point when it all becomes too pathetic even for you.”

“Your only fault has always been that you are too damnably English. You have no love and too much Romance.”

“Go to hell Igor.”

“We all will, eventually. But what will you do in the meanwhile? You must have noticed _it_ darkening-“

“Yes, yes. And what about it?”

“And what about it? What about it? When he comes back, what do you think he will do-?!”

“I don’t care what he does to you. _I_ have no reason to worry”.

“Everyone has a reason to worry. Come away with me. We could still choose life.”

“Hah. I knew you were still angling for that fuck.”

“I see. Tell me, is it true what the rumours used to say? That you were found sleeping on top of his grave. That you still lust after a dead child?”

“I will piss on top of your grave.”

There was a moment of silence, which was finally broken by Karkaroff’s raucous laughter.

“Oh Lily. You were always the funny one!”

 

 

“Evans? Don’t you ever turn your back on that one!” Moody growled. “I have no idea what Dumbledore was thinking keeping that one near children. Once a dark witch, always a dark witch. And Evans was a notorious one, oh she was! Killed aurors. Killed Death Eaters too. Why the Dark Lord didn’t squish her like a bug I still don’t understand.”  

Harry could remember Evans standing at the entrance of the tunnel, her red hair haloed by the moonlight as she had killed Lupin.

Harry knew what Evans was, the problem was that nobody else seemed to do the same.

Expect Moody. It felt so good. To share the same hatred.

“She’s rotten to the core. She killed for the first time when she was only fifteen you know. She was of course sent to Azkaban, and to my money she came out even more unhinged.”  

Harry swallowed and tried to feel hatred instead of fear.

 

 

_-Miss Granger, a plain but ambitious girl, seems to have a taste for famous wizards that Harry alone cannot satisfy. Since the arrival at Hogwarts of Viktor Krum, Bulgarian Seeker and hero of the last World Quidditch Cup, Miss Granger has been toying with both boys’ affections-_

“Tckh, tckh, what dangerous games you are playing at Miss. Granger. Don’t you know that choosing the right boy to fall in love with is _always_ a question of life and death.”

The stupid Witch Weekly article had seemed so silly as they had red it over Hermione’s shoulder, hidden underneath the table, but now in the hands of professor Evans the whole thing took a much more mortifying turn. Harry could hear the Slytherins giggling loudly behind them and feel the steady way even other Gryffindors were steadily avoiding looking at the blushing trio. That was the worst of the two. A wink from Seamus, a shared grin with Dean, it would have made Skeeter and her absurd writing the only butt of the joke. But all the other Gryffindors kept their heads forwards.

_-However, it might not be Miss Granger’s doubtful natural charms that have captured these unfortunate boys’ interest. “She’s really ugly,” says Pansy Parkinson, a pretty and vivacious fourth-year student,_

“ Oh, Miss. Parkinson, please refine from such tasteless self-flattery next time our dear Miss. Skeeter comes around asking for quotes for her…work. She might even remember your name, the next time she is falling behind on juicy stories to tell.”  Evans’ grin was razor sharp.

_“but she’d be well up to making a Love Potion, she’s quite brainy. I think that’s how she’s doing it.” Love Potions are, of course, banned at Hogwarts, and no doubt Albus Dumbledore will want to investigate these claims._

“Oh dear, one would certainly hope so.” Evans drawled sardonically.

_In the meantime, Harry Potter’s well-wishers must hope that, next time, he bestows his heart on a worthier candidate._

“And what a stunning conclusion to this thrilling tale of love and fatal passions. I completely understand why you decided that reading this was more important than listening to my instructions.” She threw the glossy magazine at Hermione, who was hit in the head by the thing. Laughter rang in the classroom.

“And Miss Granger. I would keep my head down for a while. It is a dangerous place to be the girl who plays with Potter’s heart.”

 Hermione’s eyes had none of the grudging respect and hidden desire to be respected back that she usually looked at professor Evans with. She just looked angry.

 

 “I told you!” Ron hissed at Hermione as she stared down at the letters spread over the breakfast table, letters spewing vileness and accusations. “I told you not to annoy Rita Skeeter! She’s made you out to be some sort of — of scarlet woman!”  

“Scarlet woman?” Hermione blinked at Ron, looking like she was just waiting for Ron to crack in to laughter, admit that he was joking.

“It’s what my mum calls them,” Ron muttered, his ears going red.

Harry fidgeted uncomfortably, seeing all the attention they were receiving. He idly wondered if he would start seeing Hermione stinks badges peppered amongst all the Potter stinks merchandise floating in the school lately.

Hermione yelped in pain, as the next letter she opened burst all over her hands, the poisonous puss burning her skin like acid.

McGonnagal had stood up and was rushing down the hall to see what the screaming was about. Other Gryffindors had made themselves scarce around the trio, staring fearfully at the drops of sizzling pus on the floor and the table.

 “Go back home muggle,” one of the letters thrown over the mashed potatoes said,.  

Up at the teacher’s table, Professor Evans’ hair was a blotch of scarlet, as she looked impassionately at the commotion surrounding Hermione and her letters. 

 

 

“-And we are already aware of all the names you had provided with. Seeing that you cannot offer us any useful information, you are to be returned to Azkaban, without reduction of your sentence.”

Karkaroff struggled against the two bulky aurors starting to remove him from the stand, the future headmaster desperately rolling his eyes around, trying to spot someone, anyone, who might be able to help. All around him, he was looked at with either pure hate, or weary disgust.

The memory of Dumbledore was the only one whose emotions were completely hidden behind a face of dispassionate calm. There was something eerie in seeing the kindly but slightly mischievous old man that Harry had gotten to know like this. Devoid of the aura of sympathy that he always carried with him around Harry.

“Evans! I can give you Evans!”

Dumbledore did a very small gesture with his hand, halting the aurors in their process to whisk Karkaroff away.

“Evans?” Dumbledore asked calmly. “And what about Evans.”

“She’s not what you think she is!” Karkaroff launched into his speech. “She works for the dark lord, has worked for the dark lord since the Azkaban mass breakout. She pretended to need your help, your mercy, so that you would offer her a new change under your protection. Teenage criminal reformed by Dumbledore, she knew you wouldn’t be able to resist. But she’s not with you for new life, she was spying you for the Dark lord.”

“Fascinating.” Dumbledore said, still unflappable. “But not new information. This was after all the story Lily and I agreed on to tell Voldemort. She was the spy that got us the names you have been trying to barter with this whole hearing. I am afraid that Evans isn’t your ticket to reducing your sentence either.”

Karkaroff went even paler than before, some intimate horror sucking out the last drops of strength that he had used to resist the aurors.

The memory of Karkaroff was dragged away limp and defeated from the memory of the room.

 

 

Fudge kept on talking, his voice getting shriller and shriller. “You simply cannot expect me to believe such outrageous nonsense. Mr. Crouch was clearly insane, and the fact that Potter has latched onto a madman’s ramblings only tell me how precarious this boy's mental state is-“

Harry could still clearly remember the sound of Voldemort’s laughter, the popping of bones as the pale body had started to rise from the cauldron, Pettigrew’s screams as he had lost his hand.

“I’m not a liar!”

“Young man! I’ll have you know that taking that tone with the minister of-“

“This time Potter is not wrong. The Dark Lord is certainly gaining back his strength.” Evans interrupted the two. She had been huddling in the corner of the room, keeping her distance after seeing the dementor-guard that Fudge had had with him.

“Professor Evans. Backing up Potter on his delusions is going to severely affect the way I will consider that Order of the Merlin they have been talking of giving you-“

Evans did not answer, simply stuck out her hand and rolled up her sleeve. The skull-and-snake tattoo was prominently displayed against the pale skin. There was nothing faded about the tattoo.

“Minister Fudge please. We both know which one of us is more familiar with dark magic.”


	5. Year Five

It turned out that the secret headquarters of the fabled Order of the Phoenix were in the old Potter residence. In Harry’s father’s childhood home. James Potter had gifted the house for the Order when his parents had died, he and his wife moving into Godric’s Hollow instead.

The house was nice. A residence of a family with a lot of money to burn, but a sense of modesty about it. Nothing could exactly be called opulent, but the decorative mantel-ornaments were probably worth more than the entire Weasley-household.

It had also stood empty for several years, it was clear of all the dust, the mould, and the wear and tear of time in the house that had been the centrepiece of hectic war and then left to stand empty for a decade.

Harry had spied more than one bloodstain on the couches, that no one had bothered to clean. Echoes of a time when wounded people would be in and out of the rooms, busy with staying alive.

It was not hectic like that now, the meetings that Harry was not allowed to attend leaving everyone only snippy and frustrated mentally.

While the adults were locked in the war room, which in another life had been the dining room, Harry tried to find pieces of his father in the nooks and crannies of the house. Initials scratched underneath the table there and a stack of old magazines belonging to James here.

Harry wished that a great feeling of familial connection would settle upon him as he kept unearthing more and more of the knick-knacks that his father had once held. That he could say: “Oh, I used to do that”, or “Yes, those are also my favourites!” But it didn’t happen. His father was still a stranger to him. Harry couldn’t enjoy the _Marvin the Muggle_ comics, he knew too much about muggles to do it. He didn’t get the joke scratched on the side of the wardrobe, and he didn’t particularly like the music that he could find in his father’s old room.

It was all very disheartening.

Harry’s latest find were a bunch of old yellowed letters that had been crammed into the small space between the full-length mirror and the wall. Hidden away for over a decade.

 

_-“Hey Moony! I just want to know how you are doing in Europe? I know that things in England aren’t the best for werewolves right now, but you have to know that you could always come stay in my house? ~~I just want you back here~~ \- We could all use your help in the fight against you-know-who. Please write back._

_-and I’ve been going out with Mary for a while now, and things are looking pretty good! Maybe one day you’ll be a godfather!! You would say yes right? Right? Please write back?_

_-I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I do know how you feel. I do understand! I loved him too. I loved him so much, but I still sometimes hate him. But Moony, you remember Pads. He was just like that. Crazy, and funny, and loyal, and full of bad ideas. It was why we loved him so much. He didn’t mean to use you, or hurt you! ~~Sirius loved you. He really really loved you~~ and I think that even if he’s gone, the rest of the marauders should stick together. Come back home Remus._

_-You have to know that you’re not to blame. It was me and Sirius. Sirius was the one to do it, but I encouraged him. I knew what he was going to do. It didn’t hit me until it was too late what the consequences could truly be. We were young and stupid, but Remus, ~~please try to remember the good times!~~ I really wish you were here, I miss you. _

_-and some nights the nightmares are so bad that I end up throwing up on the side of the bed. Mary thinks that I have some kind of an allergy and is getting frantic trying to solve what is causing it, but better that than the truth. I don’t want to pull her into this mess too. She is so kind soul, I don’t want to cause her any pain. But I still wish that I could talk o someone who knows. ~~It’s always the same dream, where I am in the hospital-wing. Sirius is there, and his body is there, and Evans is there, and I cannot change anything.~~_

_-I think that the worst part is how somewhere deep inside, I still thought that I could have a change with Evans during that night. When they were recovering Snape’s body from the Shack, and I thought that Evans would see it as an accident that I tried to prevent, and that I could comfort her. Somewhere in my subconscious I truly believed it all the way to the hospital-wing. I don’t think I really even hate her anymore. I hated her a lot after that night, but even that hatred has now died. She might have even had a point when she said that I was cruel and self-centred monster of a child back in school._

_-Remus, I know it is impossible, but I just wish that things could go the way they were between us. Peter is almost never around anymore, and I feel like I’m losing myself. Maybe soon I will even have the balls to actually send one of these letters to you._

The chains by the armrests rattles ominously as Dumbledore continued his defence. Harry felt very powerless in the gloomy chambers of the Wizengamot, with the hard-faced witches and wizards peering down at him, like he was an insect about to be dissected.

“— but as the Ministry has no authority to punish Hogwarts students for misdemeanors at school, Harry’s behavior there is not relevant to this inquiry,” said Dumbledore, politely as ever, but now with a suggestion of coolness behind his words. “May I also remind you that the Ministry does not have the power to expel Hogwarts students, Cornelius. Nor does it have the right to confiscate wands until charges have been successfully proven.”

Fudge’s face went purple, while the seated court around him shuffled slightly. There were some faces that looked slightly ashamed, like they had been caught with their hands in the candy jar.  

“And maybe that should change.” Called out a voice from the edges of the chamber. Harry craned his neck around to see a wizard with sharp face and dirty blond hair hunched in his chair. “Seeing how easily students seem to get hurt or worse in your school…maybe it shouldn’t be up to the headmaster whether to call for an investigation or not.”

“Ah. Mr. Mulciber. If I remember correctly, back in your school days, you were the one instigating several of the misdemeanours that you would now wish us to handle with a firmer hand. I’m glad to see that your youthful dappling with dark arts and your father’s sentence in Azkaban hasn’t reflected unfavourably on you when they decided to make you a member of the Wizengamot.”

There was even more uncomfortable shuffling amongst the Wizengamot. There were many sitting near Mulciber who had fixed their eyes to the floor, like students trying to appear small so the teacher wouldn't ask them for an answer.

“You always picked your favourites Dumbledore. Everybody in this chamber knows it, they are just too afraid to say it.”

 “You mustn’t confuse my disapproval of dark arts in my school for disapproval of students. I understand the shock for someone who has never been disciplined by their family in their life, but I have always judged my students by their actions, and nothing more.”

“That’s a fucking lie!” The twitchy wizard shouted, shooting up from his chair. “Severus was murdered in your school and you fucking know it!!”  

 A susurrus of noise rippled through the hall, and Fudge had to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard over it. The banging of a gavel echoed in the cavern-like hall with a sense of urgency.

 

When it was all over, Harry dropped the ten galleons that he had promised to the fountain, clear of all charges. Remembering Mulciber’s dark eyes staring at Harry as he was escorted out of the chambers, he felt like he was standing on the brink of something terrible.  

 

 

“And are these children aware of your rather…exciting past? Or their parents? What about your peers? How forthcoming has Dumbledore been about the circumstances of your employment?”

Evans gave Umbridge a long hard look, then carelessly flopped down to sit on her desk. She picked up a knife, touched it gingerly to her finger, and picked up a Whetstone. There was a long rasping sound as the blade travelled down the side of the handheld stone.  

“I think it is fairly common knowledge that Dumbledore gave me a new change in life after I had ended up with a criminal record in my teens. It is very kind of him.”

Judging from the stifled gasps and whispers that erupted in the classroom, it was not common knowledge at all.

“And have there been any concerns from parents about your…criminal record.”

“I’ve been on my best behaviour.” Evans grinned at Umbridge whose bulgy toad-like eyes were following the hands sharpening the knife with a steady rhythm.

 

 

Harry had been cleaning the cupboards in the potions-room during the detention, when he found it. An old textbook which margins were scribbled full of notes. It was a spur of the moment decision to tuck the book inside his robes. Evans was not paying enough attention for her to notice anything amiss.

 

 **This book is the property of** : _~~Severus Snape~~_

_~~The Half-blood~~ _

                       _ **Sev, that’s not very nice towards yourself.**_

             _That’s what they call me in the dorms_

**_~~Severus Snape, from the old and noble house of Prince.~~ _ **

**_There, I fixed it._ **

                _Lils, stop writing in my book_

_**This is a boring lesson anyway.** _

         _ Severus Snape, the Half-blood Prince._

_Happy?_

_**You know what? I think it suits you : )** _

 

                

Harry was never quite brave enough to bring the textbook to the potions classroom, underneath the all-seeing, and all-punishing eyes of Evans, but he did learn few tricks to make his grades crawl up. Severus Snape, the Half-blood Prince, was a good tutor, even across the decades.

Harry wondered what had happened to his unexpectedly funny and clever friend from the pages, remembering Mulciber in the courtroom. Severus was not a common name after all.

 

 

He found the newspaper article tucked modestly between advertisements and reader’s opinion’s columns, overshadowed by the Sirius Black case that had taken over the entire front-page.

 

**Hogwarts student found dead after breaking school rules and exploring the Forbidden Forest alone**

_An unfortunate tragedy has struck Hogwarts, the school of witchcraft and wizardry, as one of its students has been found dead after a lethal animal attack in the Forbidden Forest. The student in question, Severus Snape, age fifteen, was a member of the Slytherin house and a half-blood raised in a muggle environment. Headmaster Dumbledore has commented to not knowing the motivations behind Mr. Snape’s actions in leaving the school grounds after curfew and hopes that students in the future will understand the importance of following the rules placed there to protect their safety. He would also like to offer his heartfelt consolations to Mr. and Mrs. Snape._

_The fate of Mr. Snape has once again rekindled the conversation on the harmful effect that upbringing in a muggle environment can cause in-_

 

 

He woke up in the middle of the night, remembering the hidden letters in his father’s childhood home.

 

 

In the mangy pub Harry looked at the students gathered around him, most just curious, some eager, some slightly afraid. They were all just kids.

“We need to do this, because who else will protect us?! Umbridge says that we cannot be taught to defend ourselves because we need to trust the ministry and the teachers. It’s a lie.”

“Adults are not going to protect us. We can only protect ourselves.”

They call it DA, short for Defence Association.

 

 

“-Clear your mind, did I not say that you must _clear_ your mind. It should be an easy task for one with already such an empty head! Again! Legilimens!”

Occulmency was the worst. Especially as every time he saw Evans these days, it felt like he was walking towards a terrible revelation. The haunting pieces of the puzzle kept gathering closer and closer, but Harry did not want to see the picture they would form.

 

 

The pensieve sat as innocently as any forbidden fruit in Evans’ office. It took just a minute for the temptation to grow too big.

 

Whatever Harry had been expecting, it was not this. He was standing in front of professor Evans, expect that this professor Evans looked to be no older than Harry himself was. What shocked Harry was how different the teenage Evans looked compared to the mean hag that Harry had come to know and loathe.

Young Evans looked healthy, her skin pale but not unhealthily so, her long red hair clean, brushed, and shining, tucked neatly behind her ears. There was a touch of mascara framing her green eyes. Eyes which did not look as cold and cruel as Harry had come to know them.

In one word, she was pretty. There was no way around it. If she had walked across Harry on Hogwarts halls, he would have turned his head to look. It was discerning to say the least.

Young Evans was quietly creeping on the corridors, and judging from the darkness, it was either after curfew or just before it.

Her hurried steps finally halted as another student appeared from behind a corner and both bolted to an empty classroom, hidden from casual walkers on the main halls.

The boy that had joined Evans was a Slytherin with shoulder-length black hair that hid half of his face. One black eye was visible alongside a big hooked nose that poked from behind the curtain of greasy hair.

Evans had a look of hunger on her face as she looked at the spidery boy, who paced the floor of the room agitatedly.

“I’m not wrong, there is something going on with Potter and his gang-!”

Evans leaned back against the teacher’s desk, her face twisting at the mention of Potter. “I know that you have your pet theory-“

“I know I’m right! They are doing something illegal-!” The Slytherin boy stopped to face Evans. She flushed under his intense gaze. However, the boy seemed to be blind to Evans’ clear attraction, as he once again turned away, muttering to himself as he walked in circles.

“They are up to something-“

“No they’re not! You’re just obsessed. Yes, they’re dicks, but spending your time trying to get them expelled isn’t going to solve anything. It’s not yet illegal to be a dick.”

“there is something in the shrieking shack! I know there is. Lupin claims to be sick so often, it’s not believable!

Evans rolled her eyes as the boy had his back turned.

“All you talk about these days is them. Them or Mulciber.” She huffed.

It seemed to rattle the Slytherin a little, as he stopped pacing and came to stand close to Evans.

“Mulciber is a friend. He’s been kind to me.”

A pen, which Evans had been playing with, snapped in half.

“I’m sure he has. Tucks you in and kisses you goodnight, doesn’t he?”

The Slytherin flushed. “Don’t mock me!”

Evans did not look mocking. Her hands had curled around the edge of the teacher’s desk and her pupils were dilated. She looked anything between angry, jealous, and aroused, but not mocking.

“Why did you ask me to meet you tonight?”

The Slytherin leaned in close to Evans, who in return stared at the boy’s lips.

“Black slipped out how they get into Shrieking Shack, I could prove that they are up to something illegal-“

Evans jerked away, gathering her arms around herself and stepping away from the boy a few steps.

“Fine! Go! Walk straight into some stupid prank obviously set up by Black if you want your proof so bad!” She turned to face the boy, a familiar mocking twist on her lips. To Harry’s surprise, it looked unsettling and unfamiliar on the face of teenage Evans. “You know what, I dare you to go. Go into the Shack, just like Black wants, and if you actually find proof that they are doing something noteworthy, I will never discredit, nor oppose you in any of your theories ever again! Prove me wrong!”

She raised her hands, in a clear sign of challenge.

The boy had shaken his hair out of his face and faced Evans with a stubborn scowl on his face. “Fine. Yes. I will. I will prove you wrong! Maybe you will actually start to listen to me then.”

The boy disappeared from the classroom in a billow of green-trimmed robes, leaving behind young Evans who looked like all bravado had left her as she curled slightly into herself, blinking her eyes furiously.

 

The next thing Harry knew, was professor Evans pulling him away from the pensieve, murder glinting in her eyes.

“What are you doing!” A drop of spit landed on Harry’s cheek, and the enraged professor shook the boy in his hands, snarling all the while.

“I didn’t mean to-!”

Evans threw Harry from her hands, his back colliding with the wall, punching the air from his lungs painfully. Across from him, Evans looked almost feral. The difference to the neat young girl from the memory couldn’t have been more striking. Stringy, unkempt hair was falling over her face, and the fire burning in her eyes told of nothing but pure hatred.

“I didn’t realise- I just thought-I never meant to do any harm- I’m sorry-“ Harry realised belatedly as he tried to find something to say that would placate the woman, that she wasn’t even fully watching him. Her eyes were following something over Harry’s shoulder, looking into some other view that was visible only to her. Harry shut up, his words seemingly doing more harm than good, as Evans trembled more, the more Harry stammered apologies out of his mouth.

“Leave.” Evans spat out, eyes focusing on Harry for a split second, which was enough for Harry. He sprinted out and did not look back.

 

 

The dreams, where his friends were tortured in the black corridor of the Ministry, were almost a welcome distraction from the answer to the mystery of Severus Snape, Lily Evans, and his father.


	6. Year Six

Sun was shining, cheerfully inappropriate for a funeral. Besides him, Hermione was crying too hard to breathe properly, the little gasping noises terrible against Harry’s own shaking body. The duo left behind stood watching as Ron was lowered into the ground, one another Weasley added to the graveyard where old Weasley ancestors slept.

The clan of red-heads had flocked close together until their red heads bled into each other and it became hard to see where one head started and one ended.

Harry avoided looking at into their direction. He was afraid that he might accidentally catch the eye of one of them. He had saved the life of Arthur Weasley by refusing to learn occlumency and at the same time doomed the man’s son to an early death in the Department of Mysteries with the same decision.

Dumbledore was also there, standing modestly behind the crowds of relatives, his right hand stiff and moving oddly, hidden inside his robes. A burst of wind flaps the sleeves enough for Harry to catch a glimpse of the black flesh that Dumbledore is trying to hide.

 

 

Slughorn had several photographs laid out on the table of his borrowed house. One of the pictures was of his parents, standing side by side and waving to the viewer. They were both smiling so genuinely that it was hard to imagine that any tragedies had ever touched the young couple.

“But you already have a potions’ mistress, surely you have no need for me!” The man was arguing with Dumbledore while Harry stared at the photographs.

“But Lily has already consented to take over the DADA class. She cannot deal with both postings.”

“DADA…? Are you sure that it is wise?”

“Horace! Wasn’t she your favourite student when you were her teacher?”

“Yes, yes, of course she was brilliant. I am not denying it. We all thought that she and Potter- But Albus. After everything, are you absolutely sure?”

“Lily will do wonderful job with the DADA class, I have no doubt.”

The silence between them stretched, until Dumbledore made his excuses and left Harry alone with the man.  

Harry was distantly aware how Dumbledore probably wished that Harry would come up with something genuine and inspiring that would sway the old man to return to Hogwarts. It was clear that Dumbledore wanted him for a reason, a reason that had nothing to do with the potions class.

But he could not think of anything to say.

“I remember your father, a smart boy. Raunchy, for sure, but we all knew that he would make a name for himself one day.” Slughorn appeared behind Harry, peering at the same photograph that Harry held in his hands. 

“And my mother?”

“Hmm. A kind girl. Yes, yes. A very nice girl.”

“You don’t remember her, do you?”

Slughorn turned around and escaped Harry’s eyes. “It came as a surprise to us all when your father took with your mother. She didn’t seem like his type at all. No, not at all. He was always attracted to challenge, your father. He was head over heels infatuated with Lily Evans for years- Who could have guessed that he would gain interest in shy Mary McDonalds in the end.

“He was what-!?”

“Oh, he was a child back then. They both were. It is funny how these things sometimes go, isn’t it?”

Harry did not think so.

 

During a detention Harry is assigned to go and sort through the old student-misdemeanour records. He reads a document after document detailing how James Potter has hexed, jinxed, harassed, poked, abused and attacked one Severus Snape, and tries not to picture his father as a monstrous, spoilt, rich, brat slipping towards murder. 

 

“Did my father kill Severus Snape?”

Dumbledore peered from behind his half-moon spectacles, and Harry wished, wished desperately for him to deny it all, for outrage to take over his face; or maybe for him to crumble in grief and regret. He wished for an emotion that would finally bring catharsis to this whole sorry business.

“Your father was a good man Harry. Mischievous and restless sometimes, but _good_.” And he put so much emphasis on the word good, that Harry knew that he truly believed it. That as much as he talked of Slughorn and his “favourites” with derision, the headmaster was not above picking out his candies with care and throwing out the rest.

“Your father did everything right. It was Sirius Black who let it slip to Mr. Snape how to get into Shrieking Shack during the full moon. He was a troubled child, Sirius. Under terrible pressure from his family. Good lad, just trapped in terrible circumstances. He didn’t mean for anything bad to happen. When your father found out, he went after Snape and tried to save him. He was simply too late.”

A shadow of grief finally passes over the headmaster’s eyes.

“He was a brave young man, your father. He would have risked his own life to save Snape.”

But it hadn’t been enough, Harry thought. You don’t mourn for Snape's death, you mourn for the loss of innocence that the marauders were subjected to.

Maybe there was some interrupted youthful dream of friendship and good intentions that he was trying to re-live through his students, or maybe he simply liked the aesthetics of it all, but somewhere along the way Dumbledore had decided that there would be heroism and romance that he desperately tried to push onto Harry, to his father; maybe there was a Gryffindor in every generation that had the honour of being the vessel of Albus Dumbledore’s dreams.

“Why weren’t there any adults supervising the shack during full-moons? To make sure that no one could get in or out?” Harry couldn’t help but ask.

If I wasn’t the son of James Potter, the chosen one, would you let me slip to my death that easily too, without a fuss or a care? He does not verbalise that thought.

“Harry, My boy. Your father was _good_.” The headmaster repeats, and it occurs to Harry just how terribly sad and lonely and _hopeful_ the old man sitting on the office crammed to the brim with gifts, knick-knacks, and bright things looks.

 

Every day you can read news of arrests on the paper. It might comfort some, but Hermione’s eyes grow darker and darker with every day.

“They are only arresting muggleborns and half-bloods, haven’t you noticed.” She says. “I can’t believe what I once believed of this world.” She also says.

Harry doesn’t want to tell her how much her eyes are starting to resemble those of professor Evans’.

 

“What is a curse?” Asked professor Evans.

“No one? Five years of defence against dark arts education and not a single one of you can say what dark arts are? What makes a curse?”

"A curse…is like a rot. Something that has been left in the corner of the pantry. Something that has been forgotten underneath the floorboards. Something that festers, quietly and unnoticed at first. But it spreads, firmly and securely it spreads, tainting everything it touches. It takes and it takes, spreading the rot, until everything is covered in it. And if you want to fight it, you have to find the cause. You have to take the putrid piece of food from your pantry, you have to take the rotting thing from underneath the floorboards."

"The reason why most curse-breakings fail is not because the curse-breaker is unqualified, it is because very few people truly want to face what is causing the curse.”

Evans was talking like in trance, like she was talking to an unseen lover. She let her eyes roam the paintings of terrible things on the walls and smiled.

“the dark is a feared thing. It hides things that are beautiful and terrible. Things we don’t understand we deem dark. Things we don’t want to face we deem dark. but they stay there, watching us, judging us."

"You cannot truly understand the things in the dark unless you love them. Love what others fear to face.”

The student stayed quiet and wished that they were somewhere else.

 

“I don’t know what you are talking about," Slughorn repeated. "The memory I gave Dumbledore is all there is.”

“I see.” Harry said and was struck with a sudden bout of inspiration. “Let’s talk about something else then. Do you remember a student named Severus Snape?”

Slughorn’s face paled and the genial smile fell from his face, leaving behind a grave man with eyes glinting hard as flintstones. “And what about him?”

“you were the head of the Slytherin house when he died, weren’t you?”

Slughorn’s face twitched unpleasantly.

“he didn’t die in an animal attack.” Harry said with confidence that might not have been warranted, but which worked. Slughorn’s face paled even more, and Harry knew that he had the old man in a snare.

“He was killed, and you looked the other way because it was advantageous for you.”

“What do you want?” Slughorn wailed.

“I want the real memory,” said Harry with hardness in his voice born from every death that he had witnessed during the years.

 

 

The word _Sectumsempra_ is written on the last page of the fifth-year potions textbook that Harry still has in his possession. There is no context, but Harry assumes it to be a spell. He asks Hermione if she recognises it, but she does not. It might be that Severus Snape was experimenting, or that Hermione simply doesn’t know.

 

Hermione probably just doesn’t know. Harry’s best friend has been sleeping most of the year away, her grades dropping to the level of everyone else in her grief.

 

 

He finds out what sectumsempra does in the unused girl’s bathroom, when Malfoy bursts apart in a fountain of blood.

There is a ringing in his ears as he watches Malfoy lay deathly still in the wet floor, the red water lapping around his own shoes. Evans bursts in, yelling at Myrtle to: “Do something fucking useful for once and get Pomfrey!", frantically waving her wand and cycling through spell after spell without anything happening.

I didn’t mean to. Harry thinks. It was an accident. I just meant to scare him off. I’m not a bad person. I’m not a bad person.

 

Tonks comes to talk to him two days later, after Malfoy’s condition has been stabilised and the Slytherin boy is on his way to a recovery.

“Where did you learn that curse?”

“In a book. I didn’t know what it would do.”

Tonks looks angry but buries it underneath a small smile. Harry slightly hates her for it. That she lies to him that easily, that everyone lies to him this easily. That Malfoy will be disfigured for life and everyone simply smiles at Harry.

“Do you know who was famous for that curse?”

Harry shakes his head slightly.

“Evans. There was a time when the aurors knew her as the woman with the unhealable-cutting-curse. It was her speciality.”

Harry digests this information, tries to remember the face of Evans as she saw the cuts on Malfoy. He doesn’t remember.

“There are a lot of people who would like to know where that curse originates from.”

“It was just written on this textbook. I didn’t realise.” Harry answers, wondering if it truly is this easy to become a villain of your own story.

 

Malfoy spends two weeks on Saint. Mungo, where the healers are desperate enough to allow a muggleborn intern to experiment. Where all the healing spells of the world have failed against the unknown curse, the blunt force of stitches stops the bleeding and forces the flesh together to heal the natural way. Malfoy keeps his life, barely, because of muggle practices, and everyone can see the irony.

The aurors take away the textbook that Harry found. 

 

Harry faces no consequences for what he did.

If he was a better Gryffindor, Harry thinks, he would confront the headmaster about this. But he is not. He is just a boy, a scared boy who wants to protect himself instead of doing the honourable thing.

When Draco comes back, half of his face is scar tissue. Harry nods to him on hallways, and Malfoy nods back. They have both learned something terrible, grown up, left behind the childhood where rivalry was essential and fun.

 

Trelaweny smelled strongly of sherry when she stumbled against Harry on the quiet hallway. She drapes herself across Harry’s shoulder’s for support, her steps stumbling and speech slurring.

“I’m so sorry Harry, dear sweet boy. It’s all my fault…all my fault…” She crumbles down, and Harry does not have the strength to carry her, so he sets her down to sit against the wall. She is still clinging to him, so he settles himself sitting next to the drunken seer.

“It was me! Me who made the prophecy! The prophecy that sent HIM to hunt your parents. The one time I make a true prophecy….There is nothing but death when you make true prophecies…like with your parents…”

Harry stilled. He was about to hear Trelaweny’s point of view of the terrible string of words that had doomed his parents, had doomed him into this war.

I don’t remember much…I remember Dumbledore being so very condescending…and Evans…Evans outside the door while Dumbledore yells at her. She had been listening in at keyholes you know…such bad manners!” She laughed to herself, but Harry did not feel like laughing. He felt like nothing.

“She was such a stickler for manners back then you know. I remember her, yes I do! Everyone’s favourite, everyone’s golden girl…It was all Evans, Evans, Evans. Pretty Evans, clever Evans, popular Evans…Well look where she ended up!

“She…She heard the prophecy?” Harry repeated numbly.

“Oh sure. I remember seeing her in the hallway. I was so surprised- Evans, Evans was supposed to be in Azkaban and there she was, in the flesh! Outside the door. Listening to our interview! Can you believe it. Everyone’s favourite golden Gryffindor snooping outside my bedroom!!” Trelaweny laughed hysterically.

Harry felt a terrible acid taste in his mouth. It had been Evans who had taken the prophecy to Voldemort. Evans who had made him an orphan.

There was a strong tug on his robes, and he was face-to-face with Trelaweny who had circled from drunken hysteria to something else entirely.

“She will be our end!! You have to know that!! Dumbledore doesn’t listen to me, but I know. Dumbledore is going to make her the next headmistress of Hogwarts and she will be the last headmistress Hogwarts will ever have. I _know_ this.”

“Because you’ve seen it in a crystal ball?”

“No! I went to school with her I _remember_ her. I remember when they took her to Azkaban, and when she stood on the hallway of my room. I _remember_ when Dumbledore brought her back to the school. She doesn’t forgive. She doesn’t forget. Have you seen the way she looks at Dumbledore?”

Trelaweny’s large bug-like eyes were even larger now, pressed so close to Harry and alert with drunkenness.

“She’s still that Gryffindor girl I remember in many ways. Holier-than-thou. Righteous. She _will_ destroy us, one way or another. She _will_. Because she thinks it’s the right thing to do!”

Harry extracted himself from Trelaweny, his head still ringing with the knowledge that Evans had been the one to carry the prophecy to Voldemort. He had to talk to the headmaster.  

 

“Was it revenge?” Harry asks.

“No. It was a mistake.” Dumbledore answers. “Lily truly did not think that she was dooming anyone to certain death reporting a fragment of a prophecy from a known crackpot to Voldemort. It is an unfortunate fact of the world that the most damage done in this world is usually caused by stupidity and mistakes."

Harry walked out, thinking of himself, Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape, his father, Lily Evans and the terrible lack of kindness in this world of magic and whimsies.

 

He is bound voiceless underneath the invisibility-cloak, watching helplessly as Malfoy drops his wand after disarming Dumbledore. The headmaster smiles slightly, seeing the scarred boy slump and confess that he is no killer.

Bellatrix Lestrange laughs derisively and with a careless whip of a wand Draco is whimpering in pain on the floor.

The madwoman approaches unarmed Dumbledore and cackles. There is true fear in Dumbledore’s eyes then, and his gaze keeps searching behind Bellatrix’ back, to the empty space of the staircase.

From the corner of his eye, immobilised Harry sees a flash of red in the depths of the staircase. Green eyes peer from the shadows at Dumbledore and Dumbledore reaches his hand- “Please! Please!” he begs, the last coherent words of the great Albus Dumbledore in this life.

The green eyes turn away, and the last Harry sees are the ends of red hair as the figure turns around and retreats back down the stairs.

 

Harry closes his eyes as Bellatrix starts to kill Dumbledore, the deed taking a long time. The sound never truly leaves Harry, along with the smell and the feeling of blood seeping slowly into his shoes.

 

Harry tries to tell the aurors that he saw Evans turning away, saw Evans abandoning Dumbledore. They all look at each other and shake their heads. There is no proof, there is nothing, but his hazy memory of a flash of red hair.

Evans is installed as the next Headmistress of Hogwarts, as per Albus Dumbledore’s wishes.

 

The sun was shining again, still cheerfully inappropriate for a funeral. Standing besides him, Hermione was silently crying, but there was a firm set on her jaw. The only evidence of her emotions were two clear tear trails on her cheeks.

The merpeople sang a lament for Dumbledore, and several speakers came to pay their respects. It was a beautiful ceremony.

Harry was surprised to feel the wetness on his own face, the tears at odds with the cold numbness that he felt.

A brisk wind tugged on their clothes and made a red halo out of professor Evans’ hair behind her head as she stepped up on the speaker’s podium. Her long black funeral robes looked almost identical to what she wore every day to the classroom.

“Friends. Colleagues. Students. We have all gathered here today to remember and say farewell to Headmaster Dumbledore. For most of us, he has been either the headmaster, the teacher, or maybe even peer in Hogwarts. In any case, I doubt that anyone here can imagine a Hogwarts without Dumbledore."

"But as Dumbledore himself was keen to remind everyone, he was not a god. He was another wizard raised under these halls, and one day there would be a time that Hogwarts would continue on without him. That day has come now, and we must continue onward."

"As most of you already know, Dumbledore had chosen me to succeed him.”

There was some general murmur in the group, most people whipping their eyes up to peer at professor McGonnagall. Her face unreadable and completely fixed on Dumbledore’s grave.

“I do not profess to know all the reasons why Dumbledore would have chosen me to be the next headmistress instead of any of my more qualified peers.”

McGonnagall’s face stayed perfectly serene.

“But I hope to live up to headmaster Dumbledore’s expectations, and I will do my best to serve our school to the best of my capabilities. As a Gryffindor I have always believed in the values of my house. Bravery to do what is right, even when it is difficult. Which is exactly what I aim to do, even if it is difficult.”

There was a lull as Evans breathed deeply, and the crowd for a moment thought that she was done. It seemed like the place that she should stop and step down from the podium. She did not.

“there has been too much tragedy in Hogwarts. We have attended too many funerals, there have been too many graves. Hogwarts is a school. A place for children to call home, a place for children to enjoy their childhood. A place where children can grow to their best potential.

"Hogwarts has not been that place. There has been too much fear, too much violence, too much death in this school for it to be the place of beauty and security we wish it to be. That must change. I will change it.”

Evans’ green eyes were staring unblinkingly at the crowd.

“I will do my everything. To fix what is broken. To make things better.”

The applause that followed Evans as she walked down from the podium could be best described as confused. Evans herself was not looking at the crowd, her head was turned towards the castle in the distance, and the wind tugged at her hair again, spreading and throwing it in the air like flames. Like blood. Like the Gryffindor banner flapping in the air after victory.

 


	7. Year 7

“Oh she.” Bill Weasley said with contempt. Harry longed to join the renegades by their campfire but knew that he could not. Their mission was too important. “She has definitely done changes at Hogwarts.” Bill continued speaking to Ted and their goblin companions. “She’s already sacked five teachers. Trelaweny and Hagrid were the first ones to go.” Bill snorted. “Everybody knows that she is just getting rid of anyone who might oppose you-know-who, no matter how the prophet spins it. Considering that everyone she hires to replace them is a death eater.” 

“I heard rumours that the letters didn’t go out for muggleborns this year?”

“Even more than that, many older muggleborn students were barred from coming back too. The student population is shrinking fast. She’s expelling more students than all the headmasters put together during the last century.”

“Getting a bit paranoid there, isn’t she?”

Bill laughed. “Well. My sister is there organising a rebellion, I would say that she has some cause to be scared. No wonder she spends her time creeping in dungeons and sealing of empty classrooms. There is nothing the death eaters hate more than the idea of organised resistance.”

_"We continue to hear truly inspirational stories of wizards and witches risking their own safety to protect Muggle friends and neighbours, often without the Muggles’ knowledge. I’d like to appeal to all our listeners to emulate their example, perhaps by casting a protective charm over any Muggle dwellings in your street. Many lives could be saved if such simple measures are taken."_

_"And what would you say, Royal, to those listeners who reply that in these dangerous times, it should be ‘wizards first’?"_

_"I’d say that it’s one short step from ‘wizards first’ to ‘pure-bloods first’, and then to ‘Death Eaters'. We’re all human, aren’t we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving."_

“Does it ever bother you?” Asked Hermione as Potterwatch talked on.

“What?”

“The way they talk about muggles. Like…like they are some animal species that we need to save.”

“I don’t think that they talk like that. They just want to protect the innocent.”

“Maybe. But still. It is a bit condescending. And well…somehow dishonest. We _are_ putting wizarding lives above muggle lives. We are prioritizing the statue of secrecy over letting the muggles protect themselves.  In order to protect ourselves. I’m not saying it is a wrong choice… just that it would be nice if we were honest about it.”

_“In other news, how are things looking at Hogwarts?”_

_“Not well, not well at all. There was a surge of “blood-traitors” expelled again. Our beloved headmistress is keeping busy, isn’t she?”_

_“Even more than that, there have been rumours that besides misbehaving students, and too competent teachers, the house elves have been getting the boot too. Apparently almost half of Hogwarts elves have been given the sock, in suspicious of “unpatriotic behaviour towards the new order”. Can you imagine. You know that once elves start to look like a threat to you, you have truly flown over the hippogriff’s nest.”_

“Do you think the elves could truly be resisting her?”

“No. I think Evans has just snapped.”   

 

The portrait of Phineas Nigelus huffed and twisted around in what almost appeared to be embarrassment.

“Well, I cannot help you with that. She has removed all the portraits from the headmaster’s office. I have no access there anymore.”

Harry and Hermione exchanged glances. “Guess her paranoia is worsening.”

 

Abeforth’s casual dismissal of Dumbledore was unheard of. Many people loved Dumbledore and many people hated him, but the unimpressed loathing that Aberforth held towards his brother did not seem to fit into the picture. Uncomfortable with the information regarding Ariana, Harry changed the subject.

“And what about Hogwarts. What is happening in there?”

“My brother’s pet project is going crazy, that is what is happening in Hogwarts.” The man laughed dryly. “Albus was always drawn to the dark ones, no matter how much he tried to deny it.”

“What do you mean, crazy?” Hermione asked.

“Did you know-“ Aberforth leaned forwards, “-As today, Hogwarts doesn’t have a single house-elf left! She’s kicked them all out! Can you imagine!! All those Slytherin pure-bloods and no-one there to do their laundry!!” Aberforth laughed raucously. “Oh, that girl is about to break apart any day now.”  

 

Neville looked different from what Harry remembered. Gone was the nervous boy and in his stead stood a leader, someone DA could be proud of. Luna looked much more confident too, and Ginny, of course, looked like a goddess. Harry ached to see them all. Their easy knit camaraderie here in the Room of Requirement. The hope that they looked at him with. All so sure that the worst would be over, now that Harry Potter was here.

 “We’ve been fighting against Evans and her madness. Hogwarts isn’t Hogwarts anymore. But we do what we can!” Neville proclaimed. “I know that even the Slytherins are starting to complain. A lot of them have been called back home. And she tries to get us before we have the time to turn against her. Expelling us, forcing us to leave. Well, some of us just came here. We won’t give Hogwarts up that easily!”

"That’s great Neville. Really! But there is something we need to find."

 

 

Evans stood on the corridor entrance, hip leaning against the stone, and a diadem dangling from her fingers.

“Looking for this?”

Harry could do nothing but gape. It was so close. So very, very, close.

“You see.” Evans continued. “Firstly, there were so many attempts to steal the sword of Gryffindor from my office. Then there were the news that Gringotts had been broken into. And the only thing stolen was the Cup of Hufflepuff. So, I asked myself, what would they come looking next?”

Harry gripped his wand and steeled himself. Besides him, Hermione did the same.

“hmm.” Hummed Evans. “It is important then? Valuable.” She looked at the diadem in her hands.

She doesn’t know then, Harry thought hopefully. She doesn’t know about the horcruxes.

“Why don’t we make a trade.” She finally said. “I know, that you know, where those rabble-rising students that call themselves the DA are. Get them out of my castle, and you will get this.” She shook the diadem.

“Deal.” Said Harry, hoping she wouldn't catch on how important that diadem was for the war. 

“Let’s make a vow.” Evans said, and stroke out her hand.

She must be truly desperate, Harry thought, as he took the hand.

 

He passed the diadem to Hermione, who Harry knew would dispose it without a problem. She had a basilisk fang with her after all. It was the faces of the DA, that were twisting his guts. The anger as they were forced to march through the tunnel to Hog’s Head.

“We will come back immediately.” Hermione whispered to him. “She only made the deal that we would leave, not whether we could come back or not. We won’t abandon you!” Behind Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Neville nodded in agreement.

 

When Hermione at last slipped into the tunnel, which made the wall behind her close, Harry turned around to face Evans. "How dare you, traitor, I will never give in-"

a spell from Evans hit Harry, and he slipped into the darkness.

 

“Ennervate”

Harry woke up with a gasp. Evans was standing over him, with her wand pointed straight between his eyes. He was lying down on cold and slightly damp ground, and quickly he realised that he was in the Forbidden Forest, instead of anywhere he had expected to end up.

“Look at me!” Evans demanded and the familiar pain of forceful legilimency entered his mind, but this time there was something different. Instead of breaking in and looking through Harry’s memories, something alien was pushed in. Memories, memories that did not belong to Harry, memories belonging to Lily Evans were thrust to Harry, and opened in his mind like snapshots of a movie. 

 

Young Evans sitting cross-legged underneath the shade of a tree, holding a twig on her hands and waving it around like it was a wand. She was but a child, somewhere between seven and nine, just as the boy sitting with her. While Evans was clean, well-groomed, and clearly from a moderately rich family, the boy opposite her was her antithesis. Poor, ragged clothes and questionable personal hygiene marked him as someone young Evans would not have been expected to associate with. Neither of the children showed any signs of being aware of the myriad of taboos their friendship was breaking, as they conversed familiarly.

“And will it really come by owl?” Evans whispered.

“Normally,” said Snape, much younger, but still recognisable from what Harry could remember from Hogwarts yearbooks. “But you’re Muggle-born, so someone from the school will have to come and explain it to your parents.”

“Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?”

Snape hesitated. His black eyes, eager in the greenish gloom, moved over the pale face, the dark red hair.

“No,” he said. “It doesn’t make any difference.”

“Good,” said Lily, relaxing. It was clear that she had been worrying.

Now a little older Evans was sitting in the Hogwarts express, furiously wiping tears from her face. Two other boys were also sitting in the compartment, talking loudly to each other and paying no attention to the girl and the boy pressed against the outer wall of the compartment, talking in shushed voices.

“But we’re going!” said Snape, unable to suppress the exhilaration in his voice. “This is it! We’re off to Hogwarts!” Evans nodded, mopping her eyes, but in spite of tears, she half smiled. “You’d better be in Slytherin,” said Snape, encouraged that she had brightened a little.

“Slytherin?”

One of the boys sharing the compartment, who had shown no interest at all in Evans or Snape until that point, looked around at the word, and Harry, whose attention had been focused entirely on the two beside the window, saw his father: slight, black-haired like Snape, but with that indefinable air of having been well-cared-for, even adored, that Snape so conspicuously lacked.

“Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?” James asked the boy lounging on the seats opposite him, and with a jolt, Harry realized that it was Sirius Black. He did not smile.

“My whole family have been in Slytherin,” he said. “Blimey,” said James, “and I thought you seemed all right!” Sirius grinned. “Maybe I’ll break the tradition. Where are you heading, if you’ve got the choice?”

James lifted an invisible sword. “Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!’ Like my dad.” Snape made a small, disparaging noise. James turned on him. “Got a problem with that?”  

“No,” said Snape, though his slight sneer said otherwise. “If you’d rather be brawny than brainy —”

“Where’re you hoping to go, seeing as you’re neither?” interjected Sirius. James roared with laughter. Lily sat up, rather flushed, and looked from James to Sirius in dislike. “Come on, Severus, let’s find another compartment.”

“Oooooo . . .” James and Sirius imitated her lofty voice; James tried to trip Snape as he passed. “See ya, Snivellus!” a voice called, as the compartment door slammed. . . .

Now young Evans was at Hogwarts, in neat Gryffindor robes skipping across the Hogwarts courtyard, a wide smile on her face. Her mischievous eyes looked around, finally locking on Snape, walking alone.

With quick run, Evans caught up with the boy, tackling him from behind and covering his eyes with her hands.

“Guess who!”

“Lily! Stop it!” The boy might have protested, but he was also laughing, and seemed to enjoy the contact from the way he pressed happily into the reverse-embrace.

“Lily, my dearest best friend, please stop it?”

Evans laughed again, releasing his eyes and easily linked her arm to that of her best friend, the two continuing their walk towards the lake.

“How was potions? My herbology class was a total disaster, now listen-“

But they were interrupted by a boy with messy black hair and spectacles. His father was followed by three other boys, all young, innocent and ignorant of their sad fates.

“Oh look! It’s the princess and the frog!” Hollered James Potter, making mocking kissy noises.

“More like the miss-goody-two-shoes and the snake!” Yelled the young Sirius Black.

Evans and Snape hurried their steps, ignoring Harry’s father and his friends whose very unkind laughter echoed in the courtyard.

 

“What are you doing!” Shouted Evans, now a tween, maybe on her third or fourth year, at James Potter, her face almost as red as her hair. She had grown some curves and was starting to look more like a woman than a child.

“Oh Hey Evans! Fancy seeing you here!” James answered, grinning brightly and ruffling his hair. “I was just thinking how you and me should go on a date.”

“A date!? You were thinking how we should go on a date while showing dungbombs into my best friend’s bag?!”

“He should know better than to leave his stuff lying around. But hey! Maybe we can make a deal. You’ll go on a date with me, and we’ll leave good old Snivellus alone!”

“James Potter, you disgust me.”

 

“Don’t get all uppity, mudblood!” Yelled a student in Slytherin robes. “It won’t be long that your kind won’t be tolerated here!” His friends laughed loudly and without shame, and Evans quickened her steps, hiding her face behind her long hair as she went.

 

Evans was walking with Snape again, but their easy camaraderie was now more strained.

“. . . thought we were supposed to be friends?” Snape was saying. “Best friends?”

“We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging round with! I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, he’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary Macdonald the other day?”

Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face.

“That was nothing,” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all —”

“It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny —”

“What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?” demanded Snape. His colour rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed, to hold in his resentment.

“What’s Potter got to do with anything?” said Evans.

“They sneak out at night. There’s something weird about that Lupin. Where does he keep going?”

 “He’s ill,” said Lily. “They say he’s ill —”

“Every month at the full moon?” said Snape.

“I know your theory,” said Lily, and she sounded cold. “Why are you so obsessed with them anyway? Why do you care what they’re doing at night?”

“I’m just trying to show you they’re not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are.”

The intensity of his gaze made her blush.

“They don’t use Dark Magic, though.” Evans said, with conviction of someone who could never even imagine touching dark arts.

 

“Oy! Evans!” James Potter rushed towards Evans who was a little bit older again. Her curves had settled, and her face had lost its baby-fat, and all around she made a very attractive figure.

“How about a post-victory butterbeer!” James Potter had also grown into his stature and looked handsome in his quidditch robes.

Evans looked at him dismissively. “I have plans with Severus, thank you very much”. 

James’ face fell. “With Snivellus? Gross. Maybe I should hex some sense into him. Or maybe you”. James laughed to signal that he was joking, but Evans did not look like she got the joke.  

She strode away faster.

 

Evans was sitting on a couch in Gryffindor common room, reading a textbook. The room was otherwise empty.

“Hey Lily!” Said a plump girl with curly black hair, carefully approaching the couch. Harry recognised her belatedly as his mother. Mary McDonalds.

Evans gave her a suspicious glance.

“You’re not planning to go outside? It is a beautiful Saturday evening.”

“No.”

“I’m sorry honey. Is Severus…?”

Evans fidgeted a little, but then let her book drop. “He’s with Mulciber.”

Harry’s mother sat down next to Evans and wrapped one arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I know how much you care about him. And he is a funny guy, once you get to know him. It’s not fair.”

Evans struggled greatly, before one giant sob erupted from her throat. “What does he even think, hanging around with those pureblood slimeballs!”

Mary wrapped another arm around shaking Evans, drawing her slowly into a hug. “I know. I know you love him. It’s okay. I liked him too, last year when we went to Hogsmead all three of us. He’s making a mistake abandoning you.”   

Evans said nothing, but buried her face in Mary McDonald’s shoulder.

Evans and Snape were sitting in a secluded corner of the library, Snape showing her a familiar textbook. The textbook of the Half-Blood Prince.

“I made it for protection, Lily! You cannot argue that we don’t need protection in these times.” Snape looked like someone who was very frustratedly rehearsing an old argument.

“But it’s dark magic Sev! Dark magic! I believe that you believe that what you’re doing is right, but it’s not. Dark magic isn’t the answer!”

“And what is!? Just- Lily please. This one spell. You don’t have to use it, just memorize it. For my sake. So, you will know it, just in case.”

Evans looked very uncomfortable, and Harry found it very difficult to reconcile the young and pretty girl so repulsed even by the mention of dark arts to the strict and dangerous woman who she would grow up to be, a woman notorious for her skills in dark arts.

“Fine.” She finally relented, clearly just humouring Snape. “But I won’t use it. And I hope that you won’t either.”

“Only if there is no other choice.” Snape quickly promised, sounding unconvincing for Harry’s ears.

“Now listen, the pronunciation is:  _Sec-tum-semp-ra- “_

Despite her misgivings, Lily obediently mouthed the syllables with her friend.

 

The next scene was a familiar one, with Evans and Snape arguing about whether to pursue what was on the other end of the tunnel underneath the Whomping Willow. The scene ended just as Harry remembered, with frustrated Evans daring her friend to take the bait and go down the tunnel.

 

The next scene was in Dumbledore’s office, with the headmaster looking for once as old as his years. Evans was sitting on a plush armchair in her pyjamas, looking confused.

“Miss. Evans, I regret to inform you that there has been a terrible accident. That Mr. Snape-“ And here Dumbledore falters, his always so steady and playful words utterly failing him. Evans noticed the headmaster’s odd manner, just as Harry did.

“What!? What has happened to Sev!” There was a rising note of Hysteria in Evans’ voice, as she stood up from her chair, trembling like she already knows what Dumbledore’s next words will be.

“I’m sorry but Mr. Snape is dead.”

 

Evans, still wearing the same pyjamas with a pumpkin-juice stain on its hem, was now standing in the hospital-wing, the first rays of the rising sun creeping through the windows, illuminating just how pale Evans’ face is, how red and puffy her eyes are, how freely snot and tears are running down her face.

She pushes aside the curtains drawn to shield the last hospital bed on the corner of the hall. Harry knows what she will find, and he desperately wishes that she would turn away.

She doesn’t, instead she steps inside and with a trembling hand pulls back the sheet from her friend’s face. Harry is kicked back with recollection of Cedric’s empty eyes, as Evans is faced with the pale and lax face of the boy who she had called her best friend.

She pulls back more, revealing that while the boy’s face had been mostly unharmed, almost peaceful, aside from few small scratches on his cheek and brow, the rest of him was much more gruesome sight.

Evans swayed once, bracing herself against the bed with both hands, eyes glued to what was left of his friend’s ribcage and abdomen.

She was breathing heavily through her mouth, struggling with every breath.

A voice of footsteps startled her and stepping back from between the curtains, she was now faced with Harry’s father and Sirius Black. Both were pale and twitchy.

“You should be in the Gryffindor dormitories.” Was what Evans greeted the two boys with, in a voice entirely devoid of any emotion.

“So should you.” Harry’s father answered.

“Lily I’m so sorry.” Sirius Black said in a shuddering voice, big dark eyes looking at Lily pleadingly. “Please, I didn’t mean to- I’m so sorry!”

“What?”

“It was supposed to just be a joke. To scare him a bit. So he stops hanging around you. It wasn’t meant to- It wasn’t, I’m so so sorry- I never-“

Sirius Black was now weeping openly, hands covering his eyes. Neither of the boys were looking at Evans in the eyes, which was probably why they didn’t realise the danger. Or maybe it was that Harry already knew how this would end.

“You knew. You knew what was in the end of that tunnel. You knew what would happen when he went down there.”

“I didn’t think- I just thought he would get a scare-“

“I tried to save him.” James Potter interrupted Sirius’ ramblings. “I went after him, I didn’t want this to happen, I swear I tried to save him, I just wasn’t quick enough, he had already opened the door-“

“You tried to-“ Evans laughed hysterically “-You tried to save him. Am I supposed to say thank you now?”

“I swear I didn’t mean to hurt him! Not really! Just to scare him enough so he would stop sneaking around. Trying to get us expelled. Coming between you and James- It wasn’t meant to go like this-“ Sirius’ speech ended in a pathetic whine, as his hands took hold of his own long locks and twisted hard.

“You killed my best friend…because I didn’t go on a date with Potter.”

There was another sad whine from Sirius, who was now hunching in on himself, fingers still twisted in his own hair. James tried to protest weakly, but Evans was no longer listening.

She had launched herself forwards, hands outstretched to push at Sirius Black with all her rage, she was screaming, an inhuman screech of pure hatred.

Sirius Black went backwards without resistance, his large dark brown eyes flown wide open in surprise. That expression of surprise stayed intact as the back of his head smashed against the hard, metallic frame of a hospital-bed.  

There was a crunch, and Sirius Black crumbled the rest of the way to the floor, lax like a puppet with its strings cut off. The red pool underneath his head was spreading with extraordinary speed.

Both James Potter and Lily Evans looked at each other, both trembling and terrified.

“he was trying to apologise, you monster.” James Potter whispered, and never could have Harry imagined Lily Evans looking so pitifully scared and lost.

 

In the familiarly gloomy chambers of the Wizengamot, Evans was tightly shackled to the chair in the middle, while the seats around the chamber were noisy and bursting with energy.

“The mudblood killed my son! The mudblood killed my son!” Screeched Mrs. Black, a young boy who looked a bit like Sirius standing silently beside her, crying.

“James Potter. Is this true?” asked the judge, his eyes glinting with hatred.

Evans lifted her gaze from her lap and looked at James Potter, standing in the witness’ stand, his parents standing behind him, a silent supportive presence. There was a note of desperate pleading in Evans’ eyes as she stared at Harry’s father.

“yes.” James Potter answered. “She murdered Sirius.” And his voice broke at the end of the sentence.

 

“Merlin’s balls girl, not exactly making the case for muggleborn tolerance, are you?” The guard leading the handcuffed Evans through dark and damp hallway sounded amused. She was led to a small room with a single small torch illuminating the rows and rows of shelves with grey uniforms in them.

Somewhere through the walls, faint echoes of screams could be heard.  

“Chop, chop, we don’t have all day. Strip and change. No time to be embarrassed in this place.”

“It was an accident.” Evans said hoarsely, but emotionlessly.

The guard whistled even more amusedly. “It’s one hell of an accident to murder Lady Black’s eldest son.”

“I-“

“Strip and change. I have better things to do than to watch your ass in here.”

It hit Harry then and there how truly terrifyingly young Evans was, changing into Azkaban’s prison uniform, with the scarred elderly witch smoking a cigarette while watching in boredom. She was younger than Harry was right now, a fifteen-years-old child, pulling on the ill-fitting grey pants, with suspicious stains in them.

 

The Evans that Harry saw in the next memory was few years older, but much skinnier, and filthier. Her beautiful shiny hair had grown into a tangled mess and her green eyes were shining feverishly from the hollows of her face. She was pacing back and forwards in her small, dark, cell, holding a one-sided conversation.

“I never told you that I loved you. Why did I never do that? I was coward, that’s why. And a fool. You were right, they were always out to get you. But they got me instead, isn’t that funny. Oh Sev, I’m so sorry, I should have listened to you, always, always, I’ll love you always-“.

There was a sound of shouting, footsteps and spells being cast, that startled Evans from her mutterings and made her walk to the door of her cell. Her hands and face pushed against the rusty bars, as she tried to peer into the darkened corridor. There were shapes in black robes moving towards her cell, and they were not dementors.

Harry recognised the robes and the white masks. Death Eaters were breaking their friends out of Azkaban, just as it had happened on his fifth year.

Evans clearly wasn’t as mad as her mutterings might have made her look like, as she quickly pressed against the wall, out of sight from anyone looking from the corridor. Slowly and quietly she kneeled down and reached for the only furnishing of the cell, besides the thin mattress on the niche in the wall, a metal bucket.

“Oi! Look here! That’s the cell of the mudblood that killed Black!”

“She still alive!?”

“Guess even dementors didn’t want a mudblood for a meal.”

“Hey! Mudblood! You still in there!”

Evans’ lips were moving, as she squatted in the corner, but whatever silent debate she was having, it was too quiet for anyone to hear. Debate over, she tensed, coiled and ready for action.

“Yes.”

“Oh, hear that. She is still alive! C’mon then little mudblood. Maybe we can play a little game!”

The man opened the cell door, stepped through, and went down like a sack of potatoes when the bucket smashed him over the head.

Evans did not hesitate or stop for one second, before hitting the back of the man’s head again and again, until it started to sound squelchy and then picking up the wand from his loose fingers.

The death eater’s friend, rushing to see what the noise was, met Evans pointing a wand straight at him.

“SECTUMSEMPRA!”

Bloody ribbons spurted from the man’s chest and head, raining down on the floor and the walls.

The man’s screams that soon turned into whimpers and then gurgles, brought down more spectators for the scene, some in death eater masks, some in grey Azkaban prisoner uniforms, and one in simple but fine black robe, red eyes glimmering in the darkness.

“Well, well, well, what a fascinating spell. A dark curse that I am unfamiliar with, I must say that it has been years since I had the pleasure of witnessing such.” Voldemort gestured with his hand for his followers to stay back, as many had been preparing to attack the girl standing over two of their dead comrades.

“We simply cannot waste such a talent. Tell me dear, aren’t you the mudblood who killed Walpurga’s rebellious son?” Voldemort’s red eyes glinted like two burning coals in the darkness.

  

 

The Evans standing alone on a quiet cemetery looked healthier, but no more happier. Her spine was stiff and there was deliberate stillness in her instead of the manic twitchiness of Azkaban. Her figure dressed in death eater robes cut an unforgiving black line against the grey and reddish autumn landscape of the graveyard.

The gravestone she was staring at was small and neglected, with the name _Severus Snape_ almost hidden underneath the tall weeds.

There was a long moment where Evans simply stood still, perfectly serene like a statue, the wind tugging on the hems of her robes. She stayed still as footsteps crunched on the gravel pathway, coming closer and closer until their owner became visible too.

Evans was cautiously approached by another woman with blonde hair and a long face, who looked at Evans with only partially hidden hostility.

“Hey Tuney.” Evans acknowledged the only other living person at the scene, but did not turn to face her.

“So, you’re back.” The other woman answered.  

“I’ve heard you have gotten married. Congratulations.”

“I heard you escaped from prison.”

Now Evans turned around to face the blonde woman, who avoided looking at Evans directly. She pushed her hands deeper into the pockets of her beige jacket. “I was the first person your people came to, of course. The aurors thought that you might try to contact me after your escape.”

The woman finally met the eyes of Evans straight on. “Mother might have taken you in, hidden you away, if she was still alive. I won’t. I told them that.”

Something in Evans crumbled, her spine slumping from its ramrod straightness. She, in her death-eater robes, looked frail standing in front of this long-faced woman in muggle clothes.

“Please Tuney. I don’t want to go back.” The words were a ragged whisper coming from Evans’ mouth. “I don’t want to be a witch anymore.”

“Mother always loved you more than me. She was so proud of you. She loved you so much that it killed her when you were sentenced. She became ill the day you were locked away. Do you have any idea what it was like to watch? So no, I don’t want to have anything to do with you. I don’t want you anywhere near my family, or my life. I’m here only because I want you to know that.”

Evans opened her mouth, starting to say something, but then closed it again. “And have you contacted the aurors, then?” She finally settled onto saying, swallowing whatever she had started to say first.

“I don’t want to have anything to do with your kind.” The other woman spat out and turned around, marching away from Evans, leaving the red-head to stand all alone by the grave.

An unbearable exhaustion seemed to overtake Evans completely, as even the footsteps of the blonde woman disappeared, buckling her knees, bending her back, until she ended up kneeling on the ground, continuing her descent all the way to laying down.

Curled into a loose ball, Evans stared into nothingness as she laid on her side on the yellowing grass. The pale skin and the black robes made a macabre sight of the young woman, who almost looked like a corpse that they had just forgotten to put underground, laying on top of the unkept grave.

 

Evans, again in death eater robes, was sitting in a very nicely furnished living room with Igor Karkaroff, both drinking excessively from vodka bottles they had with them.

“You know, they’ve finished building the power-station now. The whole place is crawling with muggles.”

“If you’re so bothered, move away!” Evans slumped down on the sofa, taking another sip from the bottle.

“Move away!! The wizarding village of деревня волшебников has stood there for centuries! There are thousand wizards living there, and their families have always lived there. Just move, you say!! No, what we need is for the wizardingkind to remember who their loyalties lie with! I spit on the faces of these traitors who join the KGB instead of fighting for their own people!”

Evans lifted her boots on the mahogany table in front of the sofa. “that’s funny.”

“You’re laughing at me?!” Karkaroff banged a fist on the same table, his face stormy and red with alcohol. “You know what it can do to us! The Japanese have been birthing more squibs than ever recorded in history afterwards! And you are just here laughing like it is all some great big joke! They had no right to build that thing in Chernobyl that close to our village!”

“But _it is_ all just a one big joke. You’re just too much of a pureblood to see it.” Evans snorted, sliding even further down on the sofa, the bottle she was holding sloshing its liquid all over her front.

“For Rasputin’s sake, sometimes I don’t know if I want to fuck you or strangle you.”

 

“Well, well, well.” Voldemort’s voice was mocking as he regarded the terrified auror thrown to kneel in front of his feet. “A little traitor. And from such a respectable family too. Tchck, tchk.”

The man whimpered.

“tell me, which one of my executioners do you think you deserve.” The dark lord purred. “The mudblood or the werewolf? Tell me your crime…If it is not major, I will allow the mudblood to finish you off. She is quick and efficient.” Voldemort’s smile looked terrible on his waxen face, as he turned to his left, where Evans stood looking bored. 

 

“And why exactly do you think that I won’t simply send you back to Azkaban with a nice little bow over the package.” Asked Dumbledore, who was standing calmly inside the Shrieking Shack, facing Evans who looked to be now in her very early twenties, still wearing death-eater robes and a sense of danger around her.

“Because you want to know what I have to say. And because,-” Evans smiled the mocking smile that Harry had become so familiar with over the years, “-I think you feel a little guilty for sending me there the first time around.”

“I do feel guilty for not fighting more to save the girl who got sent to Azkaban when she was only fifteen. But I will not feel any guilt over sending this woman before me to Azkaban. You have done terrible things Miss Evans. Betrayed your own people to start with.”

Evans smiled again, a mix between the mad feverish grinning from Azkaban and the cold twist of lips that she would perfect as the potions’ mistress.

“Or maybe I’m betraying your people. You all keep saying that the Dark Lord will start a war against muggles after he is done with your side. And you all just accept that he will win. Maybe I know better.”

Dumbledore remained calm, but there was a hint of pity in his eyes as he looked at his former student.

“What do you want from me Evans?”

“I have relayed a prophecy to the Dark Lord. About a child who will have the power to vanquish him.”

“I see. And you are telling me this because…?”

Evans didn’t answer immediately but took three long strides to stand over the dark stain on the floorboards. Kneeling down, she gently touched the impression of a handprint staining the wood.

“Did you know that Mary MacDonald’s was my only friend who didn’t mind spending time with me and Severus both. The three of us went for a Hogsmeade trip together once… We had fun.” She straightened back up. “The Dark Lord thinks that the prophecy is about her son.”

“I see. And now that it is finally someone you know getting hurt your conscience has returned.”

“Take it or leave it old man. I’m just tired of this whole carousel that you call war. To my account, this whole war is just a bunch of rich pure-bloods circle-jerking for who gets to kick us undesirables around.”

“Lily.” Dumbledore sighed. “I know that you have suffered unfairly, and unfairly young. But I can help you.” Dumbledore took a step closer to her. “You are a wanted muggleborn death eater Lily. Whichever side wins, you _will_ lose. If you want a a fighting change, I can help you. But I will need your help in return.”

A sly smile bloomed on Evans’ face.

“I knew that you would break the rules in order to protect Potter.”

 

“And does Dumbledore believe you?” asked Voldemort. Evans was kneeling in front of him, but there was a certain laxness to her that the two death eaters kneeling on her left and right sides did not have. While those two were kneeling uncomfortably on one knee, Evans had tucked both of her legs underneath her, and was sitting comfortably with other hip closer to the ground than the other.

“Of course he does. He cannot imagine that a mudblood would ever be of any use to you.”

“And no doubt he thinks that a Gryffindor would never sell her people to secure her own safety.” Voldemort laughed looking down at Evans. “You’ll keep your post at Hogwarts and tell me everything Dumbledore plans.”

“Of course, my lord.” Evans answered easily.  

 

 

“And what is Voldemort planning then?” Dumbledore asked.

Evans who sat on the armchair before the headmaster snorted. “Murder of the Potters mostly. Putting the minister of muggle-affairs under imperio. Boring stuff.”

“I don’t think that putting the minister of muggle affairs under imperio should be considered boring.”

“Oh please. The man right now doesn’t even know how to pronounce the word ‘electricity’, putting him under imperio will hardly change anything.”

“Lily. My girl. Pretending to be heartless is not good for you.”

“No. I just genuinely hate everyone this much.”

 

A bang went off in the potions classroom, with a hapless student standing dumbly in front of exploded cauldron. Evans moved fast as a lighting, her wand only an inch away from the child’s nose, and eyes focused like those of a snake ready to attack. The students didn’t dare to even breath, until their teacher snatched back her hand, still staring unblinking and body coiled as if she were standing in a battlefield instead of a classroom.

“Class dismissed!” She hoarsely yelled and walked, as close to running as she was able, away. She stumbled through the door into the deep supply closet, where she vomited on the stone floor as soon as the door closed behind her.

The hyperventilating potions’ mistress shivered on the floor and made gasping noises.

 

“So. He is dead.”

“For The moment.”

Evans walked past Dumbledore’s desk to peer outside the window of the headmaster’s office. “For the moment? What does that even mean.”

“Exactly that. He will return.”

“So, he is not dead then?”

“There are signs that point that way.”

“I see. And what about me?”

“Well. My dear girl. You already have a steady career here at Hogwarts.”

Evans turned around and there was a startling vulnerability on her face. She looked her age for a change, all of 21 years old.

“I don’t… I’m not sure I should be in this castle. This place…These halls…There is a shadow in here and I’m not sure it is doing me any good.”

“You have been in an awful position for this war. It will pass.”

“I don’t think it will.” She turned her face away once again. Staring at the school grounds. “I fear what I will become underneath these halls. I fear… I feel like this place is making something in me rot. Albus I think I need help!”

She had whirled around once again. Her shoulders twitching slightly as they had in Azkaban. Dumbledore regarded her for a while underneath his half-moon glasses.

“My door will of course always be open for you, my dear girl. But I must insist on you keeping your place here in Hogwarts. Voldemort will return and when he does, I will need you once again.” 

 

 

A cauldron exploded with a bang, and a hapless first year found herself underneath Evans’ wand, drawn before anyone had had time to even blink.

The girl looked like she was ready to wet herself, and Evans blinked herself back to the classroom. She pulled back her wand, pale, breathing fast and shallowly. “Detention.” She spat out and turned away. Her eyes glanced at the supply-closet door, but she steeled herself and went to stand in front of the chalkboard, barking insults towards the whole class.

 

“Well. What do you think?” asked Dumbledore, sitting next to Evans on the teachers' table. Down at the Gryffindors’ table, eleven-year-old Harry was eating breakfast with Ron and Hermione.

“An idiot. Reckless. Thinks too highly of himself.” Evans answered deadpan and shoved food into her mouth.

“Lily. Be fair. He is just a boy.”

“Aren’t they all.”

 

“A horcrux?” Evans was leaning on her hands which were spread flat against Dumbledore’s desk.

“yes. Tom unwittingly created a seventh one when he killed Mary Potter. As his body was destroyed, the leftover piece of his soul latched onto baby Harry. That is why the two have such a connection. That is what it means that he was marked as his equal. You see, that is why the boy must die.”

 “You’ve been training him.” Evans laughed faintly. “I don’t know what I expected from you. You’ve been training him to kill himself all these years. James Potter’s son. And here I thought that you had your favourites, but you are simply heartless towards us all!”

“Countless people will die otherwise. Lily, I am not the monster you so want me to be.”

“If his death is so important, then why hasn’t he been killed already?”

“It is not- There is a difference between a willing sacrifice and a cold-blooded murder. A difference that Mary Potter has already shown us. His horcruxes were the only reason Tom survived that encounter, after all.”

“I see.” Evans said, numbly.

 

Evans was now standing inside Malfoy Manor, where Voldemort was keeping his court. Bellatrix Black was laying on the floor, flailing around in a pool of blood, clawing at her throat. Nagini was curled near her, looking at the dying woman hungrily, blood glistening on her fangs.

Voldemort stroked the elder wand on his hands, paying no attention to the carnage directly in front of him.

“Well then, Evans. I hope you are clear on what is expected of you. For a mudblood to receive such an honour…”

“I am. Both honoured and aware of my duties. Hogwarts will be led exactly as you desire, my lord.”

 

Evans was dressed in muggle clothes as she walked across an empty parking lot and slipped inside an abandoned storage building with fading Cyrillic letters painted on its side.

“Dobrý den!” Called the man standing inside, chewing on a cigarette stump and wearing worn sweats.  

“Mluvíte anglicky?” Evans answered, her eyes travelling past the man to the thousands of boxes that the building was stacked full of.

”Vhy do you think they chose me to greet you?”

“Well, I didn’t come here to chat. I came here to do business.” She opened the lid of the box nearest her, looking satisfied to see it packed to the brim with little orange, soap-bar looking squares.  

“When will you organise the pick-up?”

“Now.”

“Now? I don’t see any transport with you.”

“Don’t you know what I am?” Evans snorted, and pulled her wand inside her jacket. Levitating one of the squares from the box to her open palm. The man’s eyes flew wide, the cigarette fell from his mouth, and he stumbled hurried steps backwards looking at the wand in wonder and terror. “Kurva!!”

“You may leave now.” Evans smirked at the shocked man. “I’ve already taken care of the payment with your boss.”

The man did not need to be told twice, but his curiosity got the better of him at the door of the building, making him turn around and stop.

“The hell does a vitch do with a tonne of Semtex?”

“What does anyone do with a tonne of Semtex?” Evans smiled and pocketed the orange square in her hand.

 

Down in the gloom of the dungeons, Evans was hunched in the same chamber that had once held Nearly Headless Nick’s deathday party. Now the room was filled with boxes. The box that Evans had been working on was covered in runes, that she had just painted on it.

Straightening up, Evans took out her wand and chanted a spell. Harry might not have been the most academically inclined student, but even he recognised the rhythm of the chant. She was setting up a trigger-word, a commonly used piece of magic where the caster set a spell that could be activated only by a certain word. There were many variations to the basic idea of the magic, where the spell could either be activated by anyone, (room passwords) or only by the caster themselves, either only near the runes, or by remotely from anywhere (as was the trace in Voldemort’s name). 

Evans finished the end of her chant and then clearly uttered: "Severus Snape".

The magic settled into the runes, which shined briefly with light and then settled into invisibility.

Satisfied, Evans walked out and closed the door behind her. Then she started sealing the door shut with magic.

“Sealing off another empty room, headmistress?” Evans turned around in the faint light of the dungeons to face suspicious looking Minerva McGonagall. 

“To make sure that students cannot hide in them.” She looked ragged. The red-head had never exactly looked healthy and approachable, but headmistress Evans was even thinner and worse groomed than professor Evans had been.

“The tighter you try to control this school, the more it will slip from your grasp.” McGonagall tutted. “The more teachers you replace with death eaters, the more rebellions you will have to stamp out.”

“Not for long.”

“You won’t be able to drive me out of this school. I hope you know that.”

“And I won’t even try.” Evans shrugged and walked past the transfiguration professor, who stared at her back like she was trying to burn a hole in her.   

 

“Would you hate this thing I have become?” Asked Evans from the empty air inside the Shrieking Shack. She was sitting on the floor, back resting against the scratched wall, eyes fixed on the dark stain on the floorboards.

“I wish there was something gentle and remorseful in me, that would stop me. I wish I had never set foot in this school. That’s always where I end up. I wish none of us had stepped inside this stone monstrosity. I wish Tom Riddle had never seen all the paintings and statues and tainted-glass windows of Salazar Slytherin and been validated in his delusions. I wish they had never sorted us into houses and told us to compete for superiority amongst ourselves. I wish they had never forced us so far away from our families, until we forgot that there was life outside of this school. I wish Remus Lupin had never been brought here to live under constant fear and taught to worship every crumb of kindness blindly. I wish Potter and Black couldn’t have hidden under the banner of house-rivalry. I wish that someone in this fucking school had treated it as a school instead of a training ground for the war!”

“Oh, Sev. You would hate me, if you could see me now. You were always the kinder between the two of us. You had a meaner tongue, sure, but you never quite acted on the threats you made. In my place, you would have chosen the path with the least causalities.”

A sob escaped her. “I wish I could be more like you.”

 

And Evans levitated the unconscious Harry with her, as the burly death eater looked at his unconscious form with both hunger and loathing.

“Now, now Amycus.” Evans sneered into the man’s direction. “You know that our Lord wishes to kill the boy himself.

“I know.” He sullenly answered.

“Good. I will contain Potter, meanwhile I want you and all the other teachers to evacuate all the students from this school.”

“Why.”

“Why!” She spat in anger. “Because we are about to be attacked by a fuckton of aurors and the entire Order of the Phoenix, when they realise that we have Potter. Why do you think imbecile!”

“Oh. Right. What about the- the other kids. Not from death eater families and such.”

Evans stopped and gave the man the most condescending glare possible. “You think I want to worry about some teenager trying to stab me in the back while we defend this castle from enemies. I want every single child out of this castle, now!!”

The man stuttered his apologies and flinched away from the famous Evans temper, hurrying off.

Now alone, she hurried to the headmaster’s office, where every painting had been removed from the walls.

Once inside, she wrapped Harry’s unconscious form into his own invisibility cloak, pulled a broomstick from underneath the headmaster’s desk, and opened the window. She performed several spells meant to make her unnoticeable, and then jumped into the darkening night, still levitating harry behind her.

The flight was over very fast, as she touched ground deep in the forbidden forest, outside the wards. Quietly she slipped something into Harry’s pocket, and then pointed her wand straight between his eyes.

“Ennervate!”

 

Harry woke with a gasp.

The forest around him was quiet, save for the wind rustling the trees.

Raising on shaking legs, Harry pushed himself on the move, guessing that the direction he had chosen would be the right one.

He ran, heart pounding and metal tasting in his mouth, he ran, and he ran. He ran with branches cutting at his cheeks and foliage ripping at his clothes. He ran until he heard a faint voice. Professor Evans, using an amplifying charm, just very far away.

“I have potter.” Her faint voice said, and then a pause. The pause was followed by his own voice. “How dare you, traitor, I will never give in-“ which was then cut off abruptly. 

That’s a recording, he thought flabbergast. What in the world-? As Evan’s voice repeated again.

“We have Potter, my lord.”

He had a realisation, and then he ran again, faster than before.

 

As he reached the edge of the forest, where the trees started to thin out and the castle became visible between them, he knew that he was too late. There was a battle going on, he could see, even if he was too far away to recognise anyone. From this far, the black robes of death eaters were unrecognisable from the auror’s uniform. He wondered if they were his friends there, fighting the death eaters in a desperate hope of helping him. He could see outlines of trolls and other creatures from Voldemort’s army in the mix of wizards.

He wondered if Voldemort had yet realised the deceit. If those fighting for him had.

 

He knows the next thing to be nothing more than fancy of his mind, as he was too far away to see it in truth, but for a moment he could swear that he had seen a flash of red hair, on top of astronomy tower, looking at the battle from high above.

 

Then came the explosion.

 

It started from below, the great fiery inferno swallowing the dungeons, travelling upwards, expanding outwards, until fire had briefly overtaken everything else.

The noise was a physical force slamming into Harry, who could do nothing but stare, wondering how many of his loved ones had been swallowed inside that hell.

 

It is the noise afterwards that Harry remembers the best. The long wail of those that had survived the initial explosion. The wail of creature and human, of death eater and auror, burning alive, buried under rubble, dying. The terrible, terrible wail.

 

He walks to Hogsmeade, slowly. The little village is abuzz with movement, from medical personnel, to crying children in Hogwarts robes, to confused aurors who had been sent as a backup, to few lost dark creatures standing meekly in bounds.  He spies Draco Malfoy standing in the street, still staring at where the smoke is raising in the distance. He tries to find Hermione’s bushy head, but hasn’t spotted it, at least yet. He doesn’t think of what might have happened to her.

Harry walks amongst them numbly, and barely hears the shouts of surprise that follow him as he gets recognised.

Something presses against his chest, and with a sudden memory he pulls the piece of parchment that Evans had slipped inside his jacket.

 

_To Harry Potter._

_Do not blame yourself, you could not have known that you had a monster on your side all these years. When you read these words, I am dead, and so is Voldemort, to an extent. He cannot truly die until you have also died, but I do not see why the moment cannot be postponed. It took Voldemort 10 years to crawl back to a physical form the last time, and none even knew that he was trying to do so back then. Maybe you can contain him now that rest of his horcruxes are gone._

_Voldemort’s greatest power were always his followers, so how I see it, the easiest way to end this war is to take away the brunt of his army. You will no doubt think of me in horror for killing also those in the side of the light, but I am not a hero of this tale, and have never claimed to be._

_Do not rebuild Hogwarts. I doubt that you could, but I will still say it. Do not rebuild Hogwarts. Underneath these historical halls we raised killer after killer. Let the children study in classrooms that are painted boring beige and where there are no paintings of great heroes to raise our romantic notions of war._

_Your personal monster, Lily Evans, the last headmaster of Hogwarts._


	8. BONUS epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY OKAY SO!
> 
> When I was originally writing this fic, I drafted an epilogue for it. But then, when I started publishing, I felt that adding the epilogue I had drafted would not fit with he tone of the fic. It felt too much just like....Self therapy lol. 
> 
> But then I got a review from Frogmire which pretty much asked for the exact scenario that I had already drafted, and I decided that to hell with tone and structure, that epilogue gets published because I want to! 
> 
> SO JUST TO POINT OUT!! If you want to keep the tragic flow of the original story, feel free to ignore this bonus epilogue.

Lily woke up in King’s Cross train station, on platform 9 and ¾. The station was empty, expect for her, and everything felt weirdly grey and desolate.

She was sitting on bench, hands neatly on her lap and legs tucked together as she woke up to the perfect silence of the platform. She could not tell what had woken her.

_I see,_ she thought. _So, this is it then._

It was better than expected. In honesty, when she had been bothered to think about it, she had pictured more brimstone and fires, not this depressing greyness.

She stood up, looking around her, her slight footsteps loud in the otherwise dull silence.

“Hello”, she called into the oppressive emptiness.

“Hey.”

The voice went through her like an electric shock, seizing all her synapses and jerking her dead, unbeating heart into a painful jolt.

She did not dare to turn around, not immediately. She needed the moment to just stand still, to stare at the cracked, filthy and grey walls of the platform, of the faded and chipped letters of 9 and ¾, of the quiet misery of her surroundings, before she could slowly reorient her body.

Severus Snape stood where there second ago had been nothing but empty air, looking exactly as he had been when still alive.

Long, awkward limbs not entirely fitting into his teenager’s body. Strings of greasy hair crawling down to his shoulders, framing a face with unhealthily swallow skin and a huge hooked nose slapped in the middle, much too big for the rest of his face. Eyes black, and teeth flashing behind thin lips, crooked and filthy yellow.

He was beautiful, just like Lily had always remembered him. An angel wrapped in second-hand Hogwarts’ robes. Heavenly benevolence given form.

What else was Lily to do, but to fall to her knees and cry. Cry like for the first time since she had been 15 and spending her first night in the cold cell of Azkaban.

“Sev?”

“Hey Lily.”

“You came for me?”

“You are my best friend.”

There was a weird disconnection when the fifteen years old Severus helped her back to sit on the bench, as he was so much shorter than Lily herself, and that was not how Lily remembered him. God, he had been _so young_ when he died. Her years as a teacher were now protesting that she accept any help from a literal child, urging her to collect herself and control her 37 years old body from showing weakness like this.

But it was Severus. And she was dead. And it was all just too much.

“I’m sorry you had to go through all that.” Said Severus, hugging her grown-up, broken and twisted friend, as if they were still children and everything was fine.

Lily returned the hug carefully, inhaling the forgotten scent of potion ingredients and unwashed teenage boy. Oh, how she had missed it.

“I am the one who should apologise. You died because of me.”

“Of course I didn’t, stupid. I made my own choices.”

“I forced you to go.”

“You did no such thing.”

“I did some really awful things after you were gone.”

Severus went still and rigid in her embrace. “I know. I saw.”

“I’m sorry.”

He had nothing to say to that.

Just as carefully as Lily had entered the hug, she now pulled away, keenly aware that she was a mass murderer and that her best friend was a murder victim.

“What happens now?” She asked, looking at the beloved, unscratched face, the rib cage that wasn’t pulled apart, guts that were not hanging out.

“Well-“ Severus’ face got a bit more animated from the tender sadness it had been until now. “This is a bit unorthodox, maybe even a bit against the rules but you see- I just- Well to put it simply you have a choice now.” He fidgeted with his sleeves, as he had always been prone to do when he was having trouble putting thoughts into words. “You can either wait for the train-“

“Where will it take me?”

“Oh you know-“ he made a lazy gesture with his hand, “-away.”

It wasn’t what Lily had been asking, but she didn’t dare to ask what she really had been asking. Besides, she suspected that she knew the answer already.

“Or you could come meet someone in the station proper. We thought that maybe setting up a date for you two would be…good.”

We? Station proper? _Date??_ Lily shook her head a little in confusion.

“It’s just- You _can_ stay here, but honestly, I don’t think that _I’m_ the one you _need_.”

_You will always be the one I need_. Lily thought desperately but did not say out loud. It didn’t seem to matter, as Severus looked at her knowingly anyways. “If it doesn’t work out, you can always come back here and see if a train comes to pick you up, so you can follow me, but I _really_ think that it would be good for you to _not_ stay on this platform.” He peeled a strip of flaking paint from the bench they were sitting on, revealing decaying wood underneath.

“I…Okay. I trust you.” It was now her turn to blindly follow his suggestion and walk into the unknown. Maybe she would find salvation, maybe she would be ripped apart by a werewolf, it wouldn’t matter. It was now her turn.

“Great.” His smile was wide enough to show a flash of yellow teeth.

 

Severus guided her across the depressing shade of what looked like platform 9 and ¾, until they reached the stone wall that would lead to the muggle side of the station back in the world of the living.

Oh. The station proper.

Through the brick wall, they emerged in what was clearly King’s Cross, but just a little bit to the left.

Unlike the platform, the station was vibrant with colour, shop-window glasses clean and shiny, the noise an endless ebbing and flowing hum, and people surrounded them with the usual dismissive air of London commuters. It could have been King’s Cross as she remembered it, but not quite. She could not recognise the shops, nor the restaurants, their names unfamiliar and strange. (Expect WHS Smith. Apparently, every station always had a WHS Smith, even those in the afterlife). Where she subconsciously expected a column to be, there was nothing, and where she could remember empty space, there were columns. On the whole, there just was so much more space than in the real King’s Cross, and the ceiling was made of glass, with white structure beams making the whole affair look very airy and light.

But it was the people that were the most different. The endless flow of strange people, some dressed in Victorian era dresses, some in modern suits, some in tunics, some in spiked punk rock ensembles, and many more in garments that Lily had no words for. Some walked staring intently at a thin, rectangular thing in their hands, tapping on its surface as they passed, and some carried swords with them. None paid any attention to Lily, nor Severus. All were busy getting to wherever it was that they were going.

_Keep your soul and personality with you, at all times. Do not leave your personal sorrows unattended at any times._ Said the announcement from the loudspeakers.

She wanted to ask, of course she did, but she also suspected that the answer would be simply “The station”, were she to ask.

Severus steered her through the strange station expertly and waved towards someone standing in front of a coffee shop. That someone turned out to be her.

The Lily Evans that leaned against the wall, was much younger than her, much more gentle-looking, much more groomed, much more everything good and likeable, and Lily hated her immediately and immensely.

The other Lily didn’t look at ease either, studying her counterpart with the terrified revulsion of someone who is forced to face her grotesque double. The you, you didn’t believe yourself capable of being. Lily smiled her sharpest smile, the one that had made her students tremble and whimper in fear. The other Lily was not unaffected either, looking quickly away.

“You made it.” The other Lily aimed her words at Severus, face immediately softening and smile becoming fond.

“Of course. She’s not _evil_.” Severus answered immediately, rolling his eyes familiarly to the other, better, not broken, not twisted Lily. The Lily, who she could bet anything, had never committed war crimes.  

“Sure.” That other Lily said unconvinced. “Well, he’s inside already, so…”

Severus turned again to meet her, a certain old sadness in his eyes that forced her to remember that he wasn’t fifteen. He was not the sullen and occasionally beautifully excited young boy that had quietly stolen her heart when she still had had one. That boy had died decades ago.

“You can never really love me. You twisted that love to something terrible for so long, and I don’t know how to help you. So, I’m letting you go. Do you understand? Probably not yet, but I hope you will.”

Stretching on tip toes, the love of her life, her best friend, her obsession of over twenty years, gave her one final quick hug, before stepping back. “Turn to the right. He’s at the corner table.”

“And don’t you dare hurt him!” The other Lily added with such threatening affect, that Lily could have almost imagined herself using that tone.

Lily stepped inside the coffee shop, half expecting to end up stepping right into hell, but actually ending up just inside a coffee shop. The barista behind the counter smiled a fake smile of customer servicers everywhere. “What can I get you?”

“I don’t have any money.” She blurted out, still out of sorts with the whole situation.

“Any what?”

“Ah… Black tea?”

The barista snatched one underneath the counter, without preparing anything, and handed it to Lily, clearly expecting their interaction to be now over.

Lily stared at the hot cup in her hand, starting to get angry with how she didn’t understand anything.

Corner table at the right, Severus had said, so, there Lily headed.

She dropped the teacup, which shattered against the tiled floor, when she saw who was waiting for her.

“Lily, I told you that I don’t think that-“ The other Severus did not finish, as he came to the realisation that the Lily in front of him was not 21 years old.

“You’re not… You’re not my Lily.”

“And You’re not my Severus.” She said, as there seemed to be nothing else to say, and sat down, before her legs did something stupid.

Severus Snape as an adult was not something she had ever taken time to imagine, aside from the stray _I wish he had been able to grow into one_ thought. It was uncanny, to see the cherished familiar black eyes set in a face that had grown into its full frame, the way his body had evened out.

His eyes roamed the contours and lines of her face as freely as hers did his, something sad and hungry in them both.

The steaming cup of tea had simply appeared back on the table, unbroken, and she wrapped her hands around it just to stop them from shaking. This Severus Snape looked sad and tired and _broken_ in a familiar way that Lily never, ever had even dared to imagine any Severus Snape ever looking like.

His eyes zeroed down to her arm, where her sleeve had ridden up as she had snatched the teacup, revealing curve of black ink branded on it. “How!? Is this some kind of- Some sick joke! No Lily would ever- Not the _dark mark_!”

“Well what was I supposed to do!” Lily snapped back, now treading very familiar ground. She had spent countless nights imagining Severus looking at her in disgust, asking her _: how could you_?! Obviously, she never won those arguments inside her head, but she was familiar with the discourse itself. “You were _gone_! And no one was going to _do_ anything. And he offered me a way out of _Azkaban_! What else could I have possibly done!”

Severus across the table had gone even paler, clutching his own arm, with again too much familiarity for Lily to pretend that she did not guess what was hidden underneath that black sleeve.

She wanted to cry. Maybe she _was_ in hell and they were tormenting her by pushing her own mistakes onto the person she had most cared about.

“I…would you…” The other Severus clearly struggled with the words, “would you tell me about it.”

She had never done that. She had never told her entire story to anyone. Not Dumbledore, not Voldemort, not even Potter who had been given more intimate picture of her life than most, in the end.

But she _wanted_ to, she now realised. 

“It all started with me giving that _stupid_ dare…”

 

 

They never ran out of beverages. The barista kept bringing them more as they finished their cups, without ever needing to be flagged. Time around them stretched strangely. Some moments it felt like they had been sitting in their booth for maybe an hour, max two, and then some other moments she was convinced that they had been sitting on this booth with an ever-lasting supply of tea and coffee for days.

“-And the worst part was that when I died, I was convinced that I had failed after all. Potter was going to die, and all I had done was to make sure that he dies during the right moment. Of course Lily- My Lily- Lily from my universe, says that he did survive after all.”

Lily tried not to imagine it. Severus Snape drowning in his own blood on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. Of course she could imagine it, could vividly imagine it.

“I was right. You _would_ have found the path with the least casualties.”

Long slender fingers came to rest over hers, and the simple kind human contact felt so alien that she almost wanted to cry.

“I never cared enough about the world to try and change it.”

“And I cared too much and too bloody.”

“You have always cared about others deeply. I always wished I could have been more like you.”

“And I have apparently also always judged too harshly and been too unforgiving. I always wished I had had your pragmatism. Your capability to adapt and survive without breaking.”

Lily took the leap of faith and linked their fingers over the table. “What do you think is beyond those main doors?”

They both watched through the coffee shop window at the station entrance, the glimpses of city beyond, and the never-ending flow of people walking in and out.

Their barista approached the table again, to clear out the empty mugs, and Severus snapped her arm before she could trot away. “What is there outside?”

“The city.” The barista answered with clearly struggling to not add _duh_ at the end.

“But what does that mean?”

“Dude, I’m just a barista.” The barista angrily snapped and yanked free of Severus’ hold. “Can I bring you anything else?”

“No.” Lily said, suddenly sure of what would happen next. “We’re leaving.”

“Okay. Have a nice day.”

 

 

On the other side of the entrance, they could see and hear London during the rush hour, in all its noisy, rushed, packed glory. People annoyedly bumping into each other, cars honking, a flock of pigeons getting underfoot.

“It’s not heaven, of that I am certain.” Said Severus, standing besides her, still holding her hand.

“I know. I wouldn’t dare to try and enter, if it was.”

“Me neither.”

“Then what do you think it _is_?”

“Honestly, I have no idea.”

She took a deep, unnecessary breath, and gripped the hand holding hers a bit more tightly. “Let’s find out.”

And they stepped into the cloudy, overcast, half-light together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What happens then??? I have no idea. I left the ending for everyone to fill in their own blanks.  
> Maybe beyond the doors is a gentle purgatory, where they can live in a little cozy London flat together, talk about potions and take walks in the St. James Park, working to purify themselves.  
> Maybe the Celestial Offices are there, and Severus and Lily will be hired to work for the multiverse afterlife protection agency, have epic battles against eldritch beings, and save the world every other week.  
> Maybe They were transported into another fictional universe, and Dr. Strange is already sling-ringing in to see who the new universe-hopping visitors are.  
> Maybe they were transported into our universe, where they can grow beyond the constraints of their fictional universe, learn about character archetypes and then read Cursed Child together (and the immediately regret reading the Cursed Child together)  
> Maybe it is something entirely different.


End file.
